Premier Rally 30 September 2001
| The Premier Rally
took place in Sherwood Forest and once again Roger and Laurie Walker
ended up running at the back of the field. The stages were very sandy
and were quickly damaged by the front running 4 wheel drive cars. This
meant that the Polo was continuously crashing through huge ruts and
having to dig its way through huge sand pits on every corner.
The first stages were fairly uneventful until the car oversteered on a 90 left bend, clipped a bank, and slowly rolled onto its side (click for video). This happened in a fairly remote spot and the two marshals, that were present, were unable to right the car. Thus Laurie and Roger had to get out and push the car back onto its wheels before driving to the finish of the stage. The car suffered some minor damage including a smashed window. The service crew, Joanna Stone and Peter Mustoe, were able to provide a substantial repair courtesy of some plastic roofing plastic sourced from the local B&Q ! This was the first outing for the in car video system so all the action was captured on video. However there was no sound due to a technical problem involving an on-off switch on the microphone. The comedy of errors was rounded off by an accidental fire extinguisher test during the second service halt. Despite these set backs the team again finished, this time in 36th place of 69 starters, 6th in class. Photographs: Joanna Stone |
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