McLachlan Rallying

Chantry Road Rally 1995

28th January

Result - 7th Overall

THE BIG THAW

The weekend of 21st/22nd January yielded the heaviest snowfall of the winter, in the Yorkshire area at least. And when it snows in Yorkshire, it really snows. All the vulnerable Pennine routes were closed, submerged by numerous feet of the white stuff. Motorists died of hyperthermia on the M62 after abandoning their cars and trying to hike to a more hospitable environment. Things did not look good for driving cars as fast as possible along tiny country roads. All was however not lost as the rally wasn't due to run until the following weekend.

During the week, more snow fell, culminating in a final blizzard on Friday 27th Jan. I made the journey from Stoke on Trent to Sheffield on this same day and somehow managed to find a southerly route across the end of the Pennines. After phoning the organiser of the event twice, I came to the conclusion that he was a either a complete lunatic with no respect for human life, or a manic motorsport enthusiast that wouldn't let such feeble things as the will of God stop his rally.

I reluctantly climbed out of bed on Saturday morning faced with the prospect of driving to Hull to fetch some suitable M&S (mud and snow) tyres to give me a slight chance of even getting to the start of the rally. Of course one of them turned out to be flat and I ended up buying a new inner tube before setting off. By the time I set off, the temperature had risen and things were beginning to look more promising. I picked Eddie up in Bradford and we made our way to the noise check. As we climbed out the car, an alarming hissing noise was emanating from one of the tyres. Great start. We failed the noise test as usual, but the tester reluctantly wrote the maximum limit on the sheet and let us through. By the time we reached scrutineering the tyre was completely flat. After replacing it with a dodgy spare M&S from my selection in the boot, we were ready to begin.

The first few competitives were quite straight forward except of course that we made the typical wrong way round the triangle mistake and cost ourselves a very crucial fail (we didn't actually get our fail for this - ED). It had become apparent by now that the snow was thawing fast and that most of the roads had enough tarmac showing to drive the car on. This was not good for a rear wheel drive car with a mixture of dubious M&S tyres on as these are far worse than ordinary tyres on normal wet surfaces. So the scene was set for a swop to Yokohama rubber at the first long non-competitive. This was duly done in a pit stop time that Williams-Renault would have been proud of.

Things then speeded up a lot. I started having fun. The roads were flooded in many places and careering round a corner straight into a river of water on the road regularly happened. Good job that I'd sealed my ignition system before setting off or we'd have been pushing the car most of the way. Two sections later things did not sound to be right with a worrying vibration from the engine appearing. I later discovered that the fan had snapped in half leaving only three fins attached. It must have been the force of water hitting it in one of the floods. We only completely flooded the engine once but managed to get it started reasonably quickly. As always at the halfway stage, we were worried about our overall position and our position compared to other student (or pseudo student) crews.

The second half was if anything even wetter, but all good fun. Various fast whites made the event more enjoyable. My hastily fitted sump guard served it's purpose on at least two occasions namely a pile of bricks and a huge rock in the middle of a track. An Astra was seen at the end not to have been so fortunate, with a trail of oil following it into the finish car park.

No other serious problems emerged and a good team effort produced the desired result with MASSAC (Manchester and Salford Student Automobile Club) taking top points as is usual for proper events. I can't remember our overall final position (7th, 1 place better than 1994 - ED), but it can't have been that bad cos we ended up taking trophies home.

The Chantry Rally proved to be a lot of fun for both beginners and experienced crews. It was an altogether better event than it had been the previous year with better organisation and a more challenging route. Even more importantly the Cortina has lived on through another outing.