Syd Stelvio Peking to Paris 25 - Day 33 – Timisoara to Keszthely – 530km

Day 32 may have lulled everyone into a false sense of security that the regs in Europe would be straightforward. Well, for anyone who might have thought about getting comfortable, there was to be a gift from the organisation on day 33, in the form of a cat, thrown squarely amongst the pigeons.

Or at least that was the idea. The second reg of the day would change location, with a new set of Tulips issued at the last minute, an attempt to shake things up a bit. But if the hope was that there might have been a bit of flight as a response, the outcome was actually very much fight across the board. That was towards the end of the day’s activities though, first there was the matter of a reg to kick off the day and close out the action in Romania, before crossing the border into Hungary.

The reg was run on gravel tracks, under the low sun of the morning. It began with a crossing of disused railway tracks, on a line that had long gone the way of Beeching. The road itself was pretty well graded, and wide, though we were sharing the route with various tipper trucks, ferrying aggregate from a site in the midst of the reg. There was a tricky slot just before the middle of three timing points, requiring a dive into an easy to miss track through a field. Several competitors did indeed omit to make the turn, causing them to lose time backtracking, or even pick up a wrong approach penalty. Their blushes were saved however, when false reports of an accident further along the reg came in, causing the Doctors who were marshalling the timing point to down clipboards and head to the phantom collision. With nobody then manning the second TP, the latter part of the reg had to be scrubbed, and no timing would count.

It was a shame, this was certainly a section that could have altered a few positions, and, as well as the tricky slot, finished with a tough uphill climb on a broken surface. It wasn’t meant to be though, and despite the annoyance of it being canned, at least nobody had actually been involved in an incident.

A run on the lesser spotted Romanian Autostrazi followed, taking the rally to, and through the border into Hungary. Those who had paid close attention to the border procedures would have seen that a quick stop was required just inside the Hungary, to purchase a vignette for the toll routes, and for those that may have neglected to read their instructions, there was even a pair of large stop road signs to direct cars into the layby to purchase the said vignette. Peter Gerstrom and Mark Tilbury must have been busy discussing the finer points of Hungarian etiquette though, as they passed straight by the signs and the layby, before realising their mistake and stopping at the exit of the toll station. I didn’t see the manoeuvre they performed to back track into the rest area, but I daresay the 6 or 7 Police who were stood there didn’t either, as they were too busy posing for photos with the cars that had stopped correctly.

With vignettes purchased, and back underway there was a long transit section of a few hundred kilometres before the end of day reg. This ran along a fair chunk of highway, and through some of the towns and countryside. There were various tempting signs to Budapest, showing it to be only 150 clicks or so away, and I’m sure a few competitors wouldn’t have minded a detour to the capital. In fact, the Salters in the newly resurrected Datsun had made a detour to see friends, after only having been back with us for a day!

At around 460km into the day the new Tulips that had been issued kicked in, taking the cars towards to surprise regularity. If a bit of a shakeup had been the plan, it seemed to be coming to fruition, with various cars struggling to locate the start of the reg. But, once at the reg start everyone seemed to have gathered themselves and they soon got into the groove. There were plenty of opportunities to wrong slot, and various different surfaces to lose time on, but when the results came in it seemed everyone had steeled themselves and performed well under pressure.

It turned out that almost everyone in the top ten and beyond kept the penalties low, and when the results were issued Jorge Perez Companc and son Cristobal had actually achieved a perfect score the entire day. Their efforts were no doubt helped by young Cristobal leaving his phone in a fuel station earlier in the day, and with no Tok—Tik or Instabook to distract him, he put in a faultless performance.  Others did well too, the Caudwell’s in car 19 lost just a second to the stopwatch, and brothers John and David Houck, who up until now haven’t exactly lit up the scoreboard (or their tyres) in the Volvo Estate, finished the day with only a 9 second debt to the timekeeper, a brilliant day at the office for them. In total, 21 cars would accrue penalties in single figures, but I wonder how different this might have been had the first regularity run to completion.

You can only play it as it lands though, and so the rally will head into day 34 with everyone as they were. Perhaps a pair of regularities in Austria tomorrow, might liven things up a bit…

Syd