I've heard good things about snow socks instead of chains - never used them myself, but my mates BMW just sits still on the snow until he fits
them.
I don't think they last long on non snowy roads though.
"A final mod to the car: I have just ordered a universal cat to try and reduce the noise and smell inside the car a bit. With the hood on, you
tend to get some exhaust fumes in the car. I hope the cat at least reduces the HC-level inside the car to avoid headaches and unhealthy
situations"
Surely the only way exhaust fumes get into the car is if its leaking?
I dont see how a cat would help this?
quote:Originally posted by ReMan
"A final mod to the car: I have just ordered a universal cat to try and reduce the noise and smell inside the car a bit. With the hood on, you
tend to get some exhaust fumes in the car. I hope the cat at least reduces the HC-level inside the car to avoid headaches and unhealthy
situations"
Surely the only way exhaust fumes get into the car is if its leaking?
I dont see how a cat would help this?
Due to the shape of the car, positioning of the exhaust (pinto - engined with the alsmost universally used side exit with a 90 degree tailpipe), I
always get a whif of exhaust smell in the car. Basically, whenever I get back from a drive with the car, I smell of "classic car". I guess
everyone on here gets this?
Installing a cat will drastically reduce the HC levels; the source of the "classic car smell". It'll provide some additional noise
damping as well. I hope...
quote:Originally posted by Wheels244
I've heard good things about snow socks instead of chains - never used them myself, but my mates BMW just sits still on the snow until he fits
them.
I don't think they last long on non snowy roads though.
I wondered about the socks as well, but the organizer mandated either chains or snow spiders (used by the real competitors as they are fitted and
removed in seconds as opposed to minutes)
So, after a last push the car was more or less done and we packed everuthing into the little plastic car this morning. Here she is all packed up and
ready to go. Note the very narrow (155!) winter tyres.
After a final check we set off at around 11-ish, making our way towards Hengelo for the final scrutineering, which took place at munsterhuis; a
ferrari / Jaguar / Bentley / Alfa / Renault (!) dealership. Lots of nice cars there, but did not get a chance to take pictures. After the final
checks, we were given the thumbs up and the all important "scrutineering OK" sticker for the winscreen!
After that, it was on to the hotel for the first night. Tonight will see us getting ready for the first leg of the trial. Our start time seems to be
09:27 and before we set off towards the east, there are a few driving tests at an old airfield nearby. These are run on the "quicker =
better" principle, so for every second you take to complete the tests you get a 1 second penalty. Over the entire event, it does not really make
sense to try and go as fast as possible so I'll be aiming for "maximum attack -25%" mode. Let's see what happens....
I'll try to update along the way if and when I find the time and an internet connection. If that doesn't happen, I'll post the story
afterwards.
For now, we are back warm inside and the car is parked up for the night. Roll on tomorrow!
Right, a quick update. Today started out well with some driving tests on the Airfield I told you about yesterday. Lots of snow, lots of fun. We
actually started he day with the top down (for the pictures ;-)). After the airfield, we went en-route to the first timing check, where we arrived 5
mins late. Pretty good going I'd say as we stopped to pop the roof back up (a struggle at minus 8!) and for fuel. (Hello, cheap German fuel!
This still is locostbuilders of course!).
Soon after the first timing check we started our first ever regularity section. It was covered in snow and we were the 70th car on the stage. Slippery
does not begin to describe it! We very nearly put the car into a ditch but managed to somehow keep it on the road. Or where we thought the road should
be....
6 kilometres or so into the stage disaster struck. Broken clutch cable and no spare. With the tools I took with me I managed to shorten the outer
cable and prep everything for a successful reconnect. Only I did not bring the 7mm socket I needed. I tried for get by with some pliers but that was a
no-go. So we needed to wait for the service crew. Which took another half an hour. After losing some 2,5 hours in total we managed to get going again
and set of trying to reach the next TC in time. Which did not work. Thoroughly fed up for the day, we broke out the tomtom (yes, I know....) for the
remaining 250km. Quickest route was over the motorway which turned out to be fully snow covered with almost no traffic, so again VERY SLIPPERY. This
took almost 4 hours which was spent at between 60 an 80kph and mostly behind snowploughs(!), which made the light output at the front very, very low
because of the salt. We finally got to the hotel at 21:04 and when we parked the left wiper fell off..... That is now in the car and ill fix that
tomorrow.
Well, I've finally found some time to sit down and start doing a proper event report. Here's part 1!
As you will have read, the idea to participate in the winter trial came to be quite some months ago. After much um-in and err-ing we (the wife and me)
decided to go for it. Although the car was not 100% eligible (it's on a 1983 age related plate and the "rules" state 1976 or
earlier) the organisers saw the fun in letting us compete. The quite substantial wallop of cash that is the entry fee probably also had something to
do with it.
Preparations started a few months before the event. A mini heater wat bought and fitted to the car. other modifications included fitting a tripmaster
(wired to the gearbox speed sensor), map reading light (from IKEA! the LED reading lamp they sell fitted with a 5V regulator. Works a treat!), towing
loops front and rear, some additional poppers to draughtproof the hood and some cans of tectyl rustproofing. Made a new bootbot (130 litres!), built a
driver - co-driver intercom system and lots of other stuff. O, and I fitted some seriously skinny 155/80/R13 winter tires on Ford Ka alloys.
Lots and lots of faffing about and a flat tire on the night before we left later, we were all packed up and ready to go.
Here's the car, all packed up and ready to go! Description
We set off for Enschede were the trial would start the next day quite early on Saturday. Because we did not have any luggage space left, Antine (my
wife) sat squased in the car with a fully packed holdall in her lap for 200km. She really is a star!
Arriving at Enschede, we went to get the car through scrutineering as there were a few things that weren't checked at the pre-scrutineering a
few weeks before. And sure enough, the car passed and we got the thumbs up. At this pioint we were getting quite excited!
I must say that more than a few eyebrows were raised at the car. Not so much because it was "too new", but more because it is quite
spectaculary unsuitable for the trial.
For those not clued up on what the winter trial is, it is fairly similar to "le jong" in the UK. Both are regularity-type events run on
public roads. O, and both are a bit tough....
Anyway (and I think I posted this before) we got our sticker! Description
With scrutineering done, we set off for the hotel, where we parked up the car next to a really nice Porsche. Description
Lots of unloading later, I went to fill up the car with petrol (this would become a recurring theme, a 25 l tank is too small for endurance runs! )
and parked tucked the car in for the night in front of the hotel. Where it was spotted by a photographer for the local paper: Description
Dinner in the evening with all the competitors, a few (boring....) speaches, wine, food, fun and lots of anticipation. At around 2300, we turned in
for the night after having organized the roadbook and some last-minute route changes we got during scrutineering.
At this point, we were both bouncing all over the place. Sleep was almost non-existent and I must have checked the alarm clock a million times that
night.
The following morning we were ready to start the first leg of the trial, from Enschede to Weimar in Germany....
More on that soon!
As a teaser, here's a link to a compilation of the 2010 version of the event.
Ok, found some more time to do a slightly longer and moree detailed day 1 report.
This was it! the morning that we would really start our adventure! After breakfast we started to put all our stuff in the car, organized all the maps
for one last time and set off for the Vredestein factory in Enschede where we would get our timecard and start.
The drive to the factory was quite uneventful, but when we got there a load of friends and family members were already waiting for us, having driven
up to 2 hours to see us off. Great! :-) A quick cup of tea and trip to the bathroom later we were ready to go. The roof up-or-down discussion was
quick and painless. We would start with the roof down!
Our starting time quickly came up and driving towards the startich arch was quite a good feeling. There to start all the competitors was our former
prime-minister Jan Peter Balkenende and top racing driver Gijs van Lennep. Both looked and were extremely cold at that point, as we were the 84th
contestent to start....
Here we are at the starting line, roof down and all! Note that we've not put on the intercom set at that point.
After the start, it was straight off to an abandoned airfield in the aera for some driving tests. And my, was it slippery! a lot of the tests were
snow covered and being the 84th car on the tests did not help at all! Someone did manage to take some pictures whilst we were "at it" to
prove we also did those tests with the roof down....
Although slippery, the tests went quite well (we did not hit anything ;-)). Time to put the roof up. Observation: wrestling with a PVC soft top in
minus 5 is not fun, it was a real chore to get the thing fitted again, but we managed. Because we had to wrestle the roof in place, we lost 10 minutes
so we quickly set off towards the east. Having just passed the border, we stopped for fuel (second observation: do not go long distance endurance
driving with a 25-liter fuel tank.... fill ups take time!) and continued alog our way.
Just before lunch, the first regularity section of the trial, and our first EVER regularity section came up. Basically, you are given a set of
instructions that are either written or plotted on a map or even just instructions on HOW to plot a route on a map. With this, you get an average
speed you need to adhere to (the average speed can even change throughout the stage!) and every second you arrive to soon or to late gets you a time
penalty.
Being regularity virgins, we decided to focus on proper navigation and leave the average speed thing for later. And what a good thing we decided that!
The staeg was slipery as hell and we almost went off into a ditch almost straight off...
About 3/4 through the stage, the disaster you've already read about earlier happened; we broke the cluthc cable. After having tried to complete
the stage anyway, just without a clucth we realized that was not going to happen and we parked the car. Long story short: we lost 2.5 hours or so
because I did not have the proper tools with me (Doh!).
The afternoon of that day was slightly less pleasant. Because we lost so much time, we missed lunch (nope, nothing left to eat..... GREAT!) and
decided to just drive to the hotel in Weimar.
Que 250km of driving through some of the worst conditions I've ever seen! Most of the time we sat on the Autobahn at 40-ish miles an hour,
sometimes even slower. The snow was really coming down and as it was a sunday evening, there was almost no traffic around. When darkness fell, I made
anouther observation: the already quite poor light outpout of the headlights was further reduced by lots and lots of snow sticking to them.
At some point, I needed to look out through the side window to see if we were still in our lane.
Finally, we arrived at the hotel. There, we muched down dinner and had a bath to try and relax a bit.
I think I've posted these pics already before, but this is what the car looked like that night...
Day 2 saw us being up early again. Breakfast, getting the car ready and the final map checks slowly started to feel like routine. Today's route
would take us from Weimar (germany) to Bad Schandau (still Germany, but on the border with the Chech Republic). We also got our first route
amendements today, posted on the notice board near the main control which is usually set up in the lobby of the hotel for the night. It looks
something like this:
When our start time came up, we were off! There was LOTS and LOTS of snow on the roads and things started to get really slippery, but we made it to
the first driving test of the day without large incidents. These driving tests are usually on a track or something similar and are great fun! Very
little to hit, lots of snow and ice and thus quite some sideways action.
Someone managed to snap a picture of us not going very sideways...
After the driving test we continued along the route. I must say that the navigation was less of a problem than we had anticipated. As long as you just
listen to the navigator (SWMBO in my case ;-)) and STOP if you think you are lost everything seems to go quite well.
And we were spotted again when we came across a route check. I love these pictures!
Later that morning, we got to the first timing control of that day more or less on time. Which was a great feeling! We quickly got our time card
stamped and were on our way towards the first regularity section of the day.
Or so we thought....
Pulling out of the parking lot I already though the clutch was playing up again and sure enough, the *NSFW* cable broke again! We limped back to the
parking lot and spent another hour or so fixing it again, this time lashing up a "better" repair. After that, we had no chance of making
the next timing points on time, so we just set ourselves a new goal: get to lunch on time!
That was easier said than done.... First we lost our way on a practice area of the german Wehrmacht. We were lost for the first time, with lost of
"do not enter" signs to boot. Until today, I REALLY don't know what went wrong, but we found our way out again after some time and
soldiered on towards lunch. We were getting the hang of driving on snow and ice and started feeling a bit more comfortable. The heater was also
working well, which was nice!
When we were approximately 15 minutes away from lunch, DISASTER! The route acutally went through a forest and near the end of the road through the
forest, the local municipality had decided to close the road. There we were, the last few cars on the road (remember: we lost a lot of time with the
broken clutch), stuck in the forest. One of the other participants took some nice pictures though....
The landy, by the way, is Jan Altena's. He went along to provide technical assistance to stranded participants. (O, and kindly lent me a 7mm
spanner to fix the clutch the day before )
A quick chat between the navigators saw the group split in two. We went down the road a bit and started hunting for a shortcut that looked useable on
the maps. The 911 Targa in the pictures followed us and the other two cars backtraced the route further looking for a more sure (but longer) detour.
After 20 minutes of snow-covered forest track, we emerged from the forest and onto a clean, smooth and winding B-road. Result! Luch was near!
When we got to the lunch location (after showing the 911 a clean set of heals :-)), it turned out we were too late -again-. Hungry, cranky and a bit
annoyed we continued towards the last driving test of the day, taking a few shortcuts along the way. We did manage to get there on time, enjoyed
ourselves in the snow and all was well again.
What followed was the last section to the hotel and we were losing daylight rapidly. We drove through some really marvelous scenery (sorry, no pics)
whilst following an Alfa Giulia. Contrary to us, they had fitted additional driving lights, which was nice
We arrived at the hotel late but satisfied. During the daily dinner-talk of the organiser, we were mentioned and actually got a round of applause from
the other contestents. By now, a lot of people had noticed us and our little draughty car.... Comments varied from "you guys are nuts!" to
lots and lots of questions about being cold. Which actually (and surprisingly!) we weren't! Thank god for thermal underwear and disposable foot
heating pads!
O, and we were also mentioned in the event report on the website that day:
Dinner was great that night and we met two lovely couples from the UK. Between the six of us, we worked out that we held 3 of the last 4 places in the
overall result list.....
After dinner, the starting list for the next day was published. We would be the first car on the road the following day..........
I'd cleaned the car a bit the night before and blagged a spot right in front of the hotel that morning. At 08:30, we were off!
Our new friends in the Jag were following us when, just 5 miles into the route, we missed a left turn. We quickly realised and turned round whilst the
Jag dissapeared into the distance, merrily going the wrong way....
Having dropped jsut one or two minutes, we arrived at the start of the first regularity section which went well. At the finish of that section there
was another route chance.
Err, anyone know what RP3.1 means? O, right, that was one of the points I had marked on the map a few days earlier. We managed to find our way
again and got to lunch on time and first!
We got the instructions to the next regularity section and set to work plotting the next section of the route. Fortunatly, that was not really
difficult and we got to relax for a minute. Which was nice.
After lunch, we started off from a place calle Hruba Skala in the Chech Republic followed by a white volvo (the other English couple we met the day
before) and the Alfa Giulia we followed through the darkness. About 10 miles after lunch, I think I ran out of talent. At least, that is what I think
what happened. In a swooping right hander whilst going maybe 20mph, we came off the road. It all seemed to happen in slow motion. The bad thing was
that the road we were on was a mountain road and there was a 20ft drop. Luckily, a tree made quite a good emergency brake and we came to a fairly
sudden stop about 6ft lower at a 45 degree angle. We'd crashed.....
Filled with disbelief and after checking the wife was still OK (she was, thank god for the 4 point harnesses!) we got out of the car to find the
couple in the Volvo and the guys in the Alfa had stopped and were quite shocked. They were driving behind us and had seen us go over the edge and
dissapear.
Thoroughly dissapointed, we called for assistance. Jan Altena was quick to arrive on the scene with his trusty landrover and we set about getting the
car back onto the road after most of the other cars had passed. This took quite some doing but in the end, out of the hole she came. At that point I
had already checked the car and it was clear the adventure was over for us. The impact was on the right front wheel and it had severly bent the
suspension and chassis. We were done...
Happy to be unhurt, but feeling down nontheless, we set off toward the hotel in the rental car we got from the recovery company. Needless to say it
was a bit quiet in the car, but at least we were now properly warm!
That evening was spent arranging transportation back home for us and the car, talking to friends on the phone to share the news and trying to decide
if we'd go straight home or if we would follow the route towards the finish line in Salzburg. We decided on the latter and had a few good days
trying to drive parts of the route in our newly acquired Skoda Fabia Combi whilst not getting in the way of people.
O, and the Skoda might just have made it onto a rallycross circuit somewhere
Long story short: the car turned out to be a financial write off and has since been sold to the insurance company. For the first time in 8,5 years, I
am now sevenless and wondering what to get next. I'll post up a seperate thread for that.
So, was it worth it? Looking back, I have to say yes. After getting over the initial dissapointment we both concluded that we'd thoroughly
enjoyed the entire adventure and would maybe like to do something like this again. But with what car?..........
