PH Goes Road Rallying In An Astra VXR

Can the old warhorse hot hatch still cut it? We find out...

Riggers tries out 'light sabre' headlight option

“Now this really is proper rallying,” remarks my passenger Sean as we hurtle along a very dark, very muddy and very narrow lane deep in the Kent countryside. This is quite a compliment coming from Sean, a Motorsport News rally hack and erstwhile co-driver who’s more at home hurtling along the lanes of his native Ireland in the passenger seat of a fully-prepped rally car.

I say compliment because what we’re actually doing is taking part in a ‘navigational scatter’ - a road-based night rally that’s not all that dissimilar to a treasure hunt – in a determinedly non rally-prepped Vauxhall Astra VXR. For a bloke like Sean, who has the words ‘rally man’ tattooed on his very soul, this is high-praise indeed for such a grass-roots event.

The crack PH map-reading team gets to work

The reason we find ourselves out here in the wilds of south-east England is to put the Astra VXR through its paces. These days, the be-turboed Astra is a bit of a forgotten hot hatch, having been overshadowed by the likes of the new Golf GTI and Renaultsport Megane 250. Even the rest of the Astra VXR’s range has left it behind – the common or garden five-door Astra hatch was replaced with an all-new model some months ago.

But the three-door model – and by extension the VXR range-topper – is having to soldier on until 2011, so we thought it was time to find out whether the VXR can still cut it, or whether it’s overdue for retirement.

"Three right...blind photographer..."

Our chosen assault course has been provided by the Sevenoaks and District Motor Club. The event is called a navigational scatter because the motor club peeps give you a list of OS map grid references (some of which you have to decode) and half an hour to plot them. After this you go and collect the ‘clues’ from as many points as possible in a given time, but there is no official route – hence the participants ‘scatter’ at the start.

It’s pretty basic stuff – all you need to compete is a car, an OS map and a navigator who doesn’t suffer from motion sickness – but it is surprisingly demanding for both car and crew.

"This isn't a B-road, Sean - it looks like the A21"

We get off to a bad start as a crew – a failure to grasp the concept of time leads to us leaving the start/finish point (a pub called, wonderfully, the Tickled Trout) around 15 minutes late. But that does at least give me an excuse to get a wiggle on in the Astra in an effort to claw back some time on our fellow competitors.

In some respects this is not difficult, as I soon discover that poke remains something the VXR is not short of. A power output of 237bhp is no longer the stunning headline figure it was back in 2005 – you have to bring at least 250bhp to the table to be considered a hot hatch high roller these days – but the turbo kick and a slug of 236lb ft of torque available between 2400rpm and 5000rpm definitely marks the VXR out as a heavy hitter even now.

High-energy foods are a must...

Finesse is a quality that’s a little harder to come by, however. When it was new, the Astra VXR always felt like a bit of a blunt instrument, and the appearance of dynamically exquisite hot hatches such as the Focus RS, new Megane Renaultsport 250 and VW Scirocco has proved that brute power can go hand in hand with dynamic sophistication.

By contrast the VXR’s switch-like throttle pedal, numb steering (presumably there to help counter the ever-present torque steer) and unexpectedly flighty power delivery (how is that possible with a torque curve that’s flat between 2400rpm and 5000rpm?) makes the VXR a pretty uncouth machine.

Epic fail: wonky smiley says it all...

That’s not to say it’s not fun, though – barrelling down bumpy, narrow lanes in it is rather like hanging on to an angry, rampaging bull, but it’s actually quite fun attempting to wrestle it into submission.

But if the car isn't perfect, we don’t exactly cover ourselves in glory, either. By the end of the event we’ve racked up 120 points by visiting 12 checkpoints, which ought to put us mid-table of the 12 or so crews competing. Unfortunately our late start (and the odd wrong turn) means it’s taken us until 10.35pm to do so, making us 20 minutes late, and way beyond the 15-minute cut-off point for disqualifications.

...but ending in a pub makes up for coming last

In the end the VXR does feel its age, but its performance is rather like our own – hardly polished but nevertheless hugely enjoyable. They don't really make hot hatches like this any more, so when the current VXR dies it will be a bit of a shame.

As for the rally, we may not have covered ourselves in glory, but as a first step on the rally ladder a navigational scatter is cheap, challenging and great fun. After all, any event that starts and ends in a pub can't be bad...

^{A big thanks to all at Sevenoaks MC for all their help and patience...}