Due to engine problems, I had to retire from this event last year not far from the start, so hopefully this year there wouldn't be any such issues.
My co-driver for the event, Mike Bishop was on holiday in Scotland with his family, so the plan was for him to get dropped off at the start an meet me there. Although I have known Mike for around 16 years, this would be the first major event I have done with him. We are also doing the 10 countries rally in September, so this would give us a good idea of how we would get on while being stuck in a car with each other for many long hours.
I set off around 12pm for the long drive up to the start at Belper in Derbyshire. Colin Wake and Mark Rutter were taking part in Colin's Mk2 Triumph and would be leaving Cambridge and heading across the A14 which is the way that I would be going, so with some good timing, we met up around the Lutterworth area and then completed the rest of the journey together.
About half hour after arriving at the start, fellow Team Spotlight member Richard Warr and his Co-driver Enzo arrived, so we got the two cars together for a quick photo shoot and then went for our evening meal.
With food and coffee consumed we were given our clue sheets and started working out our route. This event is more like a treasure hunt than a rally and you are given a list of counties that you must pass through while getting photographs of points of interest from a pre-prepared list. Some locations on the a list are worth more points than others, so the idea is to work out an optimum route to gain the most points.
We had decided to treat this event as a chilled out weekend and just run together and have a laugh rather than try and win it. I've done this event many times before and have never done any good anyway, so why change the habit of a life time!
We plotted a route that took us over the peak district, then to Macclesfield, through Manchester City centre, up towards Preston, then our final stop at Blackpool Tower before heading to the halfway point at Killington Lake services in Cumbria.
After our mandatory 30 minute break, we set off again and took the A685 through Kirby Stephen and then the A66 to Barnard Castle. We then cut down through the Yorkshire Dales national park before heading south and onto the A1M. We took a short break at Wetherby services as by now our sleepless night was catching up with us all.
Slightly refreshed we set off again and headed east on the M62 before crossing the impressive Humber Bridge over the River Humber.
After a few short diversions to pick up a few more points, we then headed to the breakfast point and finish point at Lincoln. Luckily, when reading out the results, they only announced the top three places, so we didn't have to hear how rubbish we'd been. Colin and Mark did well though finishing in third place.
After a nice breakfast and a few coffees (we were needing the caffeine by now!) we set off for home. It was a lovely sunny day and we also had a trouble free drive home. (always a bonus these days) I dropped Mike off at Chelmsford service where his wife and daughters collected him and then headed home. By the time I put the car away and covered it over and got indoors, it was 1pm. Just over 24 hours after setting out on the Saturday. Time for sleep!
This is now the last event that this car will do with its existing engine. (This event definitely confirmed how tired this engine is) The new engine is nearly finished, so over the next few weeks I will start removing the old one in readiness for the new one to arrive. Good timing really because I haven't got any Club Triumph events until June now, so I've got a good few weeks to get the engine swap completed.
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