I’d not been in the co driver seat for a couple of years now, so
off went my licence application, what a bargain! £32 and it would
only be valid for 6 weeks! In fact the reminder to renew arrived
before I had even used the licence.
We decided that the Glyn Memorial, at Anglesey circuit would be
a good event to do, 2 days over familiar roads and a bit of it in
the dark. Unfortunately everyone else had the same idea, because
when I phoned up, I was told they were already on 5 reserves.
Having contacts is always a good thing and one call from Derek to
a certain scrutineer, resulted in us being offered the course car
FREE! That’ll do me!
So, there we were on the start line waiting for the clock to tick
over to 11, then 5 4 3 2 1. At this point I thought the car would
just pull away from the start line. It did, but far faster than
I had ever experienced. This was not going to be like last time
at Three Sisters. This was Derek gunning it. First left, right …..now
round the Gun Turret, full chat. Orange light on the dashboard,
car slowing, car stopped. Great start, only
done quarter of a mile and we had broken it. We pushed the
car off the stage and had a ‘fiddle about with wires nothing. Then
over the hill came the service crew (Adam and Joe), armed with……nothing!!!
We rang Steve Warrington, and found that although we thought the
ignition was not fused, it appeared it was. So we replaced a fuse
and after the end of stage two we were able to get back to service.
We then when straight back to the start line ready to open stage
3. This started ok , the stage used even more of the new area we
had used on the Pennine, but after 2 stages was beginning to cut
up really badly. Ok nearly round coming up to the Flying finish
and the yellow light on the dash again. Just managed to roll to
the finish. Bigger fuses went in for stage
5 and we went round the full stage. So, eager we set off
on stage 7, in the dark, spots fitted. Guess what, fuses blew again,
so we had to sit out the last stage at the hairpin.
We found out later that evening, that the
Radio Crews were running a book on how far we would get round!
Sunday, we had to grovel to the COC and promise that if it stopped
again we would put it on the trailer and bugger off home. No need,
now armed with 30 amp fuses and off we set into the first stage
of the day. The only problem we had was that
we had not been given the amendment to say that the new bit had
been removed from the Sunday stages, as it was too rough. So when
we got there I called ‘square right to find it was a hairpin back
left. The rest of the day was rather uneventful, apart from
the back tyres not doing their job and nearly causing us to spin
a few times, and when you're the only car out there, you know everyone
is watching just you! 5 stages later, we were all loaded up and
ready to go, Derek knowing that if he had not done this event he
would have broken down somewhere in Kielder on the R.A.C with a
blown fuse. A good FREE weekend and a good
test for the car.
