George Woods Introductory Trial

10th February 2001

Powelltown/Noojee area

* From the navigators point of view. *

Where do I start? After all the worries we have had with the car, approaching this rally was rather uneventful. We passed scrutineering with flying colors, but don't get me wrong, Mark had to work really hard to have the Charade ready in time. Me, well I just sit back and wait for the day of stress, with the pressing anxieties of sending my driver up the garden path, getting lost, not being able to read the map, and more importantly, not filling my navigators 'after lunch-bag' while we are rallying.

Before events you usually look for good omens, getting lost is not a good omen! I still say there was no road sign posted 'North Rd' going to Noojee! We eventually arrived at book in, after taking the short cut, which made us half an hour late.

Mapping out where we had to go was no problem at all. With Tony's help, it was actually the easiest mapping I've done so far, so I felt confident, pumped, and ready to go.

Hopping in the car, I felt at home, and had a good feeling about this rally. However, twenty Kms into the transport stage I started to feel ill. But there was more important things to worry about, such as trying to keep the driver under control. Usually in the first stage, drivers have a "I am Immortal" phase when nothing can hurt them, and they're out to prove something. Then they spook themselves into the real world by almost crashing, and that is something that I want to avoid. Mark was actually quite good, not cocky, but smooth and quick. Every corner was fluid and I had every confidence in him.

The first competitive was great, we were on the ball, but I still felt sick and it was getting worse. My number one rule is never tell my driver. this is for two reasons: One, he can't help me; and secondly he might slow down and not drive to his full capability. I will not jeopardise our times just because I feel a little woozy.

The second competitive was terrible!!!!!! I started feeling dizzy, and couldn't read the notes. When Mark started asking where do we go next, and I reply "I don't even know where we are on the map" that's when we have a problem. But Mark's pretty good at guessing at where to go, but this time I couldn't even help him in the general direction. I not only sent us UP the garden path, but DOWN it and all around it. I started to panic, which is never a good idea. All I could keep thinking is, when is this torture going to end? At the end of the second stage ( which we entered from the wrong direction ) I literally had no idea where we were because the notes appeared all blurry. We somehow fumbled our way to the start of the third competitive. When I got out to hand over the road card, there were a few green faces on other navigators (It is always reassuring to know I'm not the only one suffering!).

Everything that could go wrong did go wrong, wrong way penalties, cautions without warnings from the navigator, and mucking up in front of a spectator point. I don't know what Mark was thinking, but I wanted out, and out now. The stage seemed to last an eternity. When it ended I oozed out of the car, handed in the road card and dragged myself to camp. Mark had gone walk about and had no idea of my current predicament, and the news I had to give him. I couldn't go on, my body had had enough. He took the news really well, a brave face, but I knew he was hurting.

He told me that other nav's were feeling the pinch, and I'm wasn't the only one. (He told me a number of teams had to pull out for motion sickness, but only a couple were honest (brave) enough to admit it in the results of DNF'S).

The moral for this rally for me, is "Always road test car sick tablets BEFORE you go on a rally, not during" .

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* From the Driver/Owners point of view. *

From the Driver/Owner point of view the event was definitely not all doom and gloom. The event has been chalked up as a limited success. Granted, the results sheet will forever show a DNF and it has lowered our finishing rate to a lowly 66.6%, but we did have a chance to test the newly completed car. We also left with some ideas and strategies to make the team operate smoother inside the car, and we learned some valuable lessons.

 We arrived late at book-in courtesy of a short cut we took on the way (lesson one: Follow the main road). We set up camp/service at the far end of the service area and Deb settled down to work out the maps with Tony. As if he hadn't already done enough for the team, now he and Dish were happy to sit down with our maps and notes to coach us through the event.

Knowing that Deb was in good hands gave me a chance to give the car a quick once over and then fully relax before the event. Unfortunately I relaxed so much that we missed the first few vital minutes of the drivers briefing. (Lesson two: Watch the clock. Rally is all about the clock even before the event has begun.)

Second scare being over we settled back into preparing for the event at our own pace. We were in the car and lined up 10 minutes before our start time. Deb had the notes sorted and seemed confident. I was relaxed and concerned with nothing but driving.

I'd been told by a handful of people who should know, that a driver should have to worry about nothing but driving the car and the health of the car and it's occupants. To this end, I had left the mapping and notes up to Deb entirely. I hadn't even looked over the notes before the event started. This was my third big mistake. While it may work for other drivers to just drive, I need to know what is coming up. I want to know if the next couple of stages are twisty or rough, I like to think of myself (now) as a thinking driver. In future I will read through all the notes and look over the maps before we take the start.

As I touched on earlier, this was the first event since all the roll cage, suspension and electrical work. I approached the first stage with this in mind. I was feeling the car out, concentrating on keeping it smooth and working out the cars new characteristics. It was still a little soft (though that can tend to help an inexperienced driver control it a bit easier) but it was well balanced. Oversteer could be induced when required and it was easy to snatch it back to straight ahead motoring when I felt I was letting it go too far. Before I knew what was what, the first competitive was over.

Deb had had some trouble with the trip meter on the stage as it was the first time she had used it in competition. This caused her some anxiety, and I could tell from her body language that she was already feeling queasy. Things pretty much took a slide from there.

Competitive 3 was where thing really started to come apart.

About 19 Kms into the stage we missed a bear left. Realising our mistake we went back and took the bear left (now a turn right as we were coming from the opposite direction). In the confusion, we missed the next instruction only a hundred metres or so up the road, a turn hard right, and headed off passed the instruction and down the wrong road. We reached a "Wrong Way, Go Back" sign and so turned around and went back. On the way back we passed another competitor who had also missed the "turn hard right" and was heading up towards the "Wrong Way" sign. In this confusion we again missed the "turn hard right" which, because we were approaching in the opposite direction, had become a "bear left". Instead we ended up back where we first missed the "bear left", took a "turn hard left", ran a couple of hundred metres up the road to where the "turn hard right" road we SHOULD have taken came out, and straight up to a passage control, entering from the South instead of the South-West and therefore incurring a 30 minute time penalty for "wrong direction" at a control. Confused??? So were we at the time.

Still reeling from the penalty incurred and not really quite sure where we were, we took a "turn left" about a one and a half Kms up the road (about half a Km too early) and before we knew what was happening we had arrived at the finish control from the East instead of the North as required and therefore incurred our second 30 minute penalty in one stage!!

All this really rattled Deb's confidence. We took a 'detour' in the transport and arrived at the start control for the third and final competitive before service, with only seconds to spare.

We were counted in and started the stage in a flurry of notes. By this time (as I later found out) Deb was so sick she couldn't even focus on the notes. We somehow struggled through the stage. About half way in we "Wrong Directioned" another passage control, incurring a third 30 min penalty, but by now it really didn't matter much. We squeezed past a Peugeot stopped barely the other side of a narrow bridge with no sides and on down to the finish.

From there it was a short hop to service. As Deb settled herself at service quickly looked over the car and then went for a walk to have a look at the progressive times. We were fairing pretty well time penalties excluded. I was also pleased to see that many of the teams had incurred a couple of 30 min penalties. I walked back down to the service area to speak to Deb but I had I feeling I knew what she was going to tell me. Deb was too sick to continue, so that was the end of our event.

As I said at the top, I wasn't too disappointed with the nights work. We had proven the car and we had learned a lot.

We'll be ready for 'em next time.

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