Guy's Corner - RAC Rally Of The Tests 2018
By the time you read this, those of you who are competing on Rally of the Tests will have already had the route information through your inbox and no doubt many of you will have already plotted it. Read more...
By the time you read this, those of you who are competing on Rally of the Tests will have already had the route information through your inbox and no doubt many of you will have already plotted it. We carried out the final recce last week and we now have a great event planned for the crews. An interesting prologue will start you off on Thursday evening followed by a pretty hectic morning of tests before a different style lunch halt close to the Humber Bridge. The afternoon sees us trekking across the flat lands of Lincolnshire with a number of tests and some small regularities to keep you occupied before a night regularity close to the overnight hotel at The Belfry.
The next morning starts with some tests and an interesting private land regularity before the coffee halt. We then venture into an old test favourite at Ditton Priors for a number of tests. The meat of the rally then commences as we cross over the border into Wales with regularities and tests down through the centre of Wales before we hit the Epynt Military Ranges for 2 tests, 2 regularities and a timed control section. We then head further south with a small regularity and tests before crews arrive at the Caerwent, where we have managed to secure at last minute a TC Section to give the crews a buzz before they arrive at the Celtic Manor for the overnight halt.
The final day kicks off at 8am. We have a slightly later start due to Remembrance Day Services on the route, with 4 tests before the first regularity and the remaining 5 regularities before lunch. After lunch the navigators can relax a bit as the free flowing tests around a local race circuit before the final test at the iconic RAC building in Bristol. The result of the event is highly unlikely to be over until crews arrive at least at lunch if not after. We have over 90 crews looking to start with a number of previous winners including the return of Paul Wignall and Mark Appleton looking for another win on the event. Unfortunately last year’s winner John Abel is unable to join us this year but we look forward to seeing him out in the near future.
Since my last missive for Heroics, I went on the Himalaya rally with the ERA Team. What an experience – 26 days away travelling through India. You may have seen reports on the website or on Facebook, it was a massive adventure. We got stuck in Manali for 3 days when a number of the roads and bridges were washed away. We had to plan “The escape from Manali” as it became known by getting the cars across a narrow steel suspension bridge at 5am! It was an interesting experience once the locals started to wake up and the command we had was “hold at all costs to stop traffic coming towards us” so we could get all the 35 vehicles across. It involved the sweeps repairing a hole on the entrance to the bridge so that we could square the cars up, as the width of some of the vehicles only had half an inch to spare either side. Luckily we managed to get all the vehicles across and the event continued, we were back on schedule eventually with some additional re-routes.
The unseasonal weather that we encountered made the event for a number of people, but it had a major impact on the ERA team and everybody within the team worked exceptionally hard to achieve a successful event which eventually ended up 21 days later at Agra overlooking the Taj Mahal.
I have to say that 26 days straight was rather taxing for all the ERA team, everybody stepped up to the mark and it was a great pleasure to work on this event and I look forward to more adventures soon.
Immediately after Rally of the Tests we are straight into Le Jog and then we are looking at putting together the calendar for the next 2-3 years for both arms of the company – HERO and ERA. Also, we will be looking at planning new and innovative events throughout the UK, Europe and the World.
That’s it for now! I look forward to catching up with everybody on Rally of the Tests and Le Jog.
Regards
Guy
The next morning starts with some tests and an interesting private land regularity before the coffee halt. We then venture into an old test favourite at Ditton Priors for a number of tests. The meat of the rally then commences as we cross over the border into Wales with regularities and tests down through the centre of Wales before we hit the Epynt Military Ranges for 2 tests, 2 regularities and a timed control section. We then head further south with a small regularity and tests before crews arrive at the Caerwent, where we have managed to secure at last minute a TC Section to give the crews a buzz before they arrive at the Celtic Manor for the overnight halt.
The final day kicks off at 8am. We have a slightly later start due to Remembrance Day Services on the route, with 4 tests before the first regularity and the remaining 5 regularities before lunch. After lunch the navigators can relax a bit as the free flowing tests around a local race circuit before the final test at the iconic RAC building in Bristol. The result of the event is highly unlikely to be over until crews arrive at least at lunch if not after. We have over 90 crews looking to start with a number of previous winners including the return of Paul Wignall and Mark Appleton looking for another win on the event. Unfortunately last year’s winner John Abel is unable to join us this year but we look forward to seeing him out in the near future.
Since my last missive for Heroics, I went on the Himalaya rally with the ERA Team. What an experience – 26 days away travelling through India. You may have seen reports on the website or on Facebook, it was a massive adventure. We got stuck in Manali for 3 days when a number of the roads and bridges were washed away. We had to plan “The escape from Manali” as it became known by getting the cars across a narrow steel suspension bridge at 5am! It was an interesting experience once the locals started to wake up and the command we had was “hold at all costs to stop traffic coming towards us” so we could get all the 35 vehicles across. It involved the sweeps repairing a hole on the entrance to the bridge so that we could square the cars up, as the width of some of the vehicles only had half an inch to spare either side. Luckily we managed to get all the vehicles across and the event continued, we were back on schedule eventually with some additional re-routes.
The unseasonal weather that we encountered made the event for a number of people, but it had a major impact on the ERA team and everybody within the team worked exceptionally hard to achieve a successful event which eventually ended up 21 days later at Agra overlooking the Taj Mahal.
I have to say that 26 days straight was rather taxing for all the ERA team, everybody stepped up to the mark and it was a great pleasure to work on this event and I look forward to more adventures soon.
Immediately after Rally of the Tests we are straight into Le Jog and then we are looking at putting together the calendar for the next 2-3 years for both arms of the company – HERO and ERA. Also, we will be looking at planning new and innovative events throughout the UK, Europe and the World.
That’s it for now! I look forward to catching up with everybody on Rally of the Tests and Le Jog.
Regards
Guy
