Well sort of; having enjoyed a wonderful two weeks in Tuscany
with great food and wine, if not the best weather as we had plenty of
thunderstorms, there was little to report on the rallying front.
Well apart from stumbling across the Mille Miglia on a day
trip to Arrezzo and seeing some amazing veteran cars.
Then the next day whilst stopping for lunch at Radda in
Chianti, realising we were sat opposite a check point for the Eroica in Moto, a
two day navigation rally for pre 2000 trail/adventure bikes run over the stradale
bianchi, the “white roads” of Chianti.
However after a delayed flight home from Pisa (thanks Easy
Jet)! It was a mad dash to get unpacked, a frantic search for some clean
clothes and packing up the van for a trip to Malvern Wells where I was the
Clark of the Course for the Inaugural Wales 500 Navigation Rally.
I didn’t get everything together until after midnight so
decided a two hour drive to Malvern wasn’t the best idea so I went to bed planning
an early morning run on the Saturday. After all registration didn’t start until
10:00.
After less than six hours sleep, I got up, showered and
jumped in the van. Grabbing a McDonalds breakfast on the way (obligatory for
any proper road trip) I got on my way to Worcestershire. Arriving at about
08:30 at the Three Counties Showground, I was presented with an assortment of
tents and camper vans and what looked like a huge number of BMW R1200 GS
Adventures. John Douglas, who was running the GPS tracking system soon turned
up and Patsy Quick from Desert Rose Racing was there and first task was to help
her unload a bunch of KTM 1090s from the back of the truck, not too difficult
with a tail lift!
After finding Race HQ and organiser Burt Hughes, things
swung into action and we were overwhelmed by 120+ riders wanting to register,
sign up for day licences, collect GPS trackers, borrow road book holders and
buy T shirts! Somehow we got through it all and were ready to go at the allotted
time. Funnily enough it was just like the sign on for a cycle race, although it
was soon evident we were dealing with a large number of “rally virgins”, I
guess we have all got used to entrants in “proper” rallies mostly knowing what
they are doing and the few noobs being helped by the “old hands” here the noobs
were the vast majority and required a lot of guidance, something I guess we
should have anticipated.
Saturday’s format was a 100km road route to familiarize everyone
with their chosen form of navigation, either by GPS or Road Book and one small
off road skills test. After a sketchy start because the aforementioned noobs
seemed unable to grasp the concept that a start time is the time you start, not
the time you sit on your bike in the paddock and having a natter with your
mates.
Once we persuaded everyone to start, all went well with no major
problems and very little in the way of “navigational embarrassments”. We were able to sit in the event HQ and watch
everyone’s progress on screen due to the excellent GPS tracking system.
The only small glitch of the day was when one competitor has
a minor crash on the way back and was unable to continue as his bike was stuck
in fourth gear. Thanks to the trackers, we could see where he was and directed
two travelling marshals to him in a matter of minutes. The rider was thankfully
unhurt and the marshals were able to get him back to the show ground.
Saturday night saw a briefing for all riders, dinner and a
very welcome bar, John spent some time drafting up an excel spreadsheet to
calculate the results and the results from day one announced. The format was
simple, the aim being to match the planned distance (100km) as closely as
possible. Obviously navigational errors would add or subtract from the actual
distance covered. The skills test was scored like a trial, one penalty point
for a foot down, two for the next and three for the third or more “dabs”. Five
penalty points being awarded for those who stopped, fell off, failed to finish
or didn’t attempt the test at all. Each point was added as a kilometre to the rider’s
total.
This saw a marked change in competitors as many had seen it
as “just a ride” but now the red mist of competition descended, or rather as
there was no speed element to the event, more of a pale pink mist.
After a very wet night with thunderstorms that kept a lot of
people awake (but not me) we awoke to a rather damp Sunday. An early start was
the order of the day as riders had over 400km to complete, this time heading
across Wales almost to Aberystwyth and using several Forestry areas only open
to the event and not rideable by the public. In addition they had five skill
tests to complete. The Start went better this time with (most) riders started
at their correct time. All trackers were checked on the line and found to be
working so we were in business.
Most riders took up to ten hours to complete the course with
the morning proving very wet with thunderstorms over most of the route, although
by the afternoon conditions dried out and the sun even came out.
We eventually got everyone back in, results were calculated,
dinner was served, the bar was open, “war stories” were exchanged and
eventually the awards were presented.
All agreed that the event had been a huge success, with many riders saying they’ll be back next year. We also learnt a lot and hope to make
the next edition even better and hopefully including some more forests.
Some fantastic images from the event and some from the final recce:
Photo Dave Turner
Photos: Sabrina Louise Eifion
Photo Tom Prendegast
Photos: Cliff Osenton
