Well It's been a while and I think an update is due!!
Mull 2016.
Nearly a year has pasted since I got back from Mull and I thought I would give you a pen picture of the event.
We put our entry in at 7am on the day they opened and were entry 101. It seems they days of unfilled entries are gone. A good friend who has competed on Mull 20 times, Jim Brindle was 13th reserve so we didn’t do too badly. (Jim got a run.) It was a rush to get the car built in time. I put together a Clio 172 RS in ten months on a very limited budget but managed to get it taxed tested and onto the Island in time. Oosi as she was christened (reg number OO51MAS hence Oosi) was my road car until the bottom pulley s**t itself and pulled the auxiliary belt off. The gearbox mount was also snapped so I put it into the garage after I sold the little Daihatsu Cuore and started the build.
I stripped out everything including the dash and loom and put a bolt in cage, it is impressive none dash dodger and with twin diagonal. I changed the exhaust to a Janspeed system, suspension to Spax with European tarmac spec springs, polycarbon windows with sliders, new disks and Mintex 1155 pads and all the usual safety items needed. It took me months and having written it I wonder how it took so long but there are only so many hours in a Saturday afternoon. Anyway she looked good on her 16” rims and after I set the ride heights, front toe out (10 mins) and camber (1.5-neg) she was ready. I took her up the road and she seemed good.
My co-driver, Alan and I travelled over night to get to Mull on the first Monday ferry and then on to Torloisk to our cottage (£700pw!0 Only to find someone in it and to cut a long story short we had to leave and return at 2pm. By which time I had been awake for 30hrs. So we went straight to bed after getting the frozen food in to the freezer.
The recce started and we put some hard hours in and refined the notes we had made from last year. The car was Scrooted on Thursday afternoon. We had asked for permission to be done then as we were due to be last car (again) on Friday which meant we would be hanging around in Tobermory all Friday afternoon until the start.
Now, I remember The Tour of Mull being a great clubman rally. It seems to be run now for the top 30. Everyone else just makes up the numbers. Let me explain. There is a shakedown stage on the Thursday which costs £150 it is only open to 20 cars. Not too inclusive I think. We were seeded at 129!!!!! Which we queried with the organisers explaining we were in a much quicker car than last year (Daihatsu Cuore with 64bhp) and had beaten most of the cars we were seeded behind and we felt we would be catching cars an every stage.
Guess what? They said tough and we caught and passed 7 cars on the first night. Some pulled over straight away. Others took much longer to get out of the way, one nearly required a nudge after 3 miles of refusing to let us past on Tuath.
Below follows the event stage by stage
Prior to start I put some old fuel in and it was crap and needed draining out. Our intercom is a Peltor unfortunately my new helmet wasn’t. So I did have a correct spare mic and plug but had left it in the cottage. We got it and started the event.
Stage
- Lochs; Slippy as Hell, brakes went off before the hairpins!
- Hill Rd Tuath; Amazing. Car ran faultlessly and we were on it 41th overall. Caught 3 cars Two pulled over straight away, a Scooby decided to hold us up for over 1.5 miles. He must have been able to feel the lights burning the back of his head never mind see them.
Service; Clicked the Spax suspension up, BIG mistake
- Glen/Calgary Car was so bouncy it was undrivable on the bumpy Glen. Caught 3 cars.
- Griburn Bouncy and not I wasn’t committed
- Scridian as above
Daylight started 60th, Pissing down. We found we had a broken engine mount
- Artun; 2 miles of a pointless waste of time. It takes about an hour of road time for a 3 minute stage and then another 20 mins to get to Scridian.
- Scridian. 20 min delay in stage start. Bounced so hard after the yump outside the white house Alan dropped the notes!
- Griburn. I didn’t commit due to engine feeling it was about to fall out and car kept popping out of gear.
- Locks1. Rain was now monsoon like with standing water. Stage was slippy and we were understeering out of everything tight. Brakes ran out again going up the hairpins
- Calgary. Good stage but The tyres weren’t getting warm and not giving me confidence
- Ensay Hill Rd. Decided to give it a go only to get held up by a convoy of cars pottering to the end. Apparently the lead car in this 8 car convoy had seen a speccy walking on the stage and decided to stop the rest of us by driving slowly and refusing to let the ten cars behind him through.
- Lochs. As stage4 and the power steering stopped working, then decided to work after the finish of the stage.
- Calgary. As stage 5
- Ensay. Even the wipers on full couldn’t shift the water, so I took it easy.
We finished the daylight stages at 6pm so we didn’t have time to go back to the cottage.
2nd Night. The organisers had lost our time card and we had to start (after a little discussion) at car 98 instead of 47th. We did manage to Fix the engine mount. It lasted 3 yumps into the next stage
- Calgary/Tuath. We decided to give it a real go. We knew we would be quick as we had done a good time on Friday. I was really pissed off with the thought of catching cars again but….. They cancelled the stage! Gave us a nominal time 3 minutes slower than the cars running at 46-47-48. I was fuming, we didn’t want to run at the back of the field for this reason and now we were penalised for their error!
- Griburn. I wasn’t committed as I knew we had nothing to drive hard for. Caught the mini ahead of us
- Scridian. As above. Caught the car ahead of us
- Glen/Locks. I said to Alan that I would just drive to the finish. Caught and managed to pass 2 cars.
I loved the stages, they are simply terrifying and yet addictive. The car ran well despite some teething problems. Nothing I put on the car broke or dropped off so I am chuffed about that. The brakes can be fixed with better fluid. The engine mount was just one of those things and didn’t stop us.
We christened ourselves 'team overlooked'. Crap seeding, lost time card and not re seeded into our rightful place. We finished 48th not a great result but it was carnage on the stages and 65 cars didn’t get to the end. The cars have come on massively. Even 1400 cars are running 170bhp and clicky, sequential boxes with 3 way Proflex, Ohlin or Rieger suspension now. The days of the club car are gone. There must have been 10 WRC cars plus another 30 well sorted Evos and Scoobies. I was talking to Paul ‘Elderly Saab’ Darlington and he wondered if a road rally class or controlled tyres class wasn’t the way forward.
I did enjoy it despite everything despite having to leave Sunday morning so Alan could attend a wedding. I will do it again next year but I need;
- 200bhp
- Proflex
- LSD
- Lower diff ratio 5.2
- Sticky tyres