More tales of derring-do from the rallying for wrinklies team Fiesta, the first round of the 2025 championship, Tour of Cheshire, Saturday 1st March, based in Nantwich, maps 117, 118, 126 & 127. Over the winter the Fiesta has been treated to some tlc with a ‘new’ motor, no more oil leaks or oily haze, much quieter and more miles to the gallon. On the menu ten tests and eight regularities. Two tarmac tests at Market Drayton, four tarmac tests at Oulton Park, two gravel tests at the Cheshire Showground and two tarmac tests at Booths Hall on the outskirts of Knutsford. Four regularities collected at sign-on and four Jogularities collected en-route (including the usual hectic dash around the showground).
Instructions for Jogularities C & F collected followed by a short run out to regularity A, should have been a straight forward opener but turned into a nightmare, not what was needed. Instructions were as simple as they get, shortest route between the start and finish with a small loop, two timing points, four speed changes, and only seven miles. Confusion over the terminology at the second speed change (SC A1 – which translated to the first manned PC) resulted in a wrong slot and missed speed change. The wrong slot was recoverable, the missed speed change wasn’t, wasted joker at the first timing point (TP) and a knock on to the penalty at the second TP). The joker was available to drop your worst late penalty at a timing point on the public highway. Worse was to follow with a stupid wrong slot on the link to the first test, no great harm but did nothing to warm the atmosphere in the office. Simple repeated test around the bollards in Market Drayton Auction Market, no dramas and a bit of a thaw. 7 seconds off the pace on test 1 (tied 18th) and 6 seconds on test 2 (tied 7th).
Short link to Regularity B, spot heights and map features, twelve miles, four TPs, route pre-plotted with speed tables provided (nine speed changes). Fairly straight forward the only complexity provided by crossing backwards and forwards over the three maps. No dramas with all four TP penalties under 5 seconds (which is good for me). Longish link to Regularity C, tulip jogularity (no maps or speed tables), four sheets of tulip instructions, fourteen miles, five TPs, one PC, six speed changes (plus an extra minute for some traffic lights). Again, no dramas and all five penalties under 5 seconds. Short link to tests 3 & 4 at Oulton Park. 6 seconds off the pace on test 3 (tied 5th) and 5 seconds on test 4 (tied 3rd). At the coffee halt results post-event showed us running a surprising 5th o/a on 5:53 with the leaders on 5:23, after what I thought had been a miserable morning and mainly down to our wasted joker. Instructions for regularity D collected.
Longish link to Regularity D, tulip jogularity (no maps or speed tables), four sheets of descriptive instructions (128 to be precise), twenty-two miles, six TPs, three PCs, fourteen speed changes. A rather traumatic time was in store. All was well through the first two TPs and then it all went pear-shaped at instruction 81 at 13.59 miles ‘Follow Unsuitable for HGVs route’. Jogularities are fine if you don’t wrong-slot, but if you do then they unravel very rapidly. There are no excuses for missing the slot, the trip was spot on, but I looked up to see the trip well past 13.59 and still on the main road, the unwritten rule of Jogularities is when the distance comes up then follow the instruction, whatever you do ‘DO NOT LOOK FOR THE JUNCTION’ to follow the instruction. We could have done with the joker at the next TP! Worse was to come. Once you have faltered on a jogularity the timing becomes a bit of a lottery. But then we had instruction 112 to look forward to.
‘This innocuous instruction accounted for 36 jokers at the next TP. Sat at the kitchen table it is obvious which way to go, but in the heat of battle a bit baffling. Perhaps ‘GW Turn away from the hydrant sign’ would have been fairer. Unfortunately, our joker was well and truly used. Back to Oulton Park for lunch, via petrol. Back to normal, 15th o/a at lunch on 7:22 with the leaders on 5:30 but only 26 seconds away from 10th.
Two more goes at Oulton Park, 5 seconds off the pace on test 5 (tied 4th) and 6 seconds off the pace on test 6 (tied 10th). Longish run to the Showground (tests 7 & 8 plus regularity E). 17 seconds off the pace on test 7 (tied 22nd) and 13 seconds off the pace (tied 23rd). Not sure why, can’t remember any obvious mistakes. Now for jogularity E, four sheets of tulips to cover 2¼ miles, three speed changes, four TPs, five PCs. Always a challenge, try and stick to the average speed to the first TP and then basically as quick as you can for the other TPs and PCs, we survived OK apart from a slight delay at the final gate as the car in front hesitated, every second counts.
Another longish link to two tests on Booths Hall car park. Tied 1st o/a on tests 9 & 10 as we were one of 18 cars to beat bogey on test 9 and 38 on test 10. Regularity F started at the exit from Booths Hall, seventeen miles of descriptive instructions, just the 69 this time, four TPs, two PCs, six speed changes. No problems to report but real schoolboy timing with a nett zero over the four TPs, sounds OK but three seconds early at TP1 three seconds late at TP2, six seconds late at TP3, six seconds early at TP4, actual penalty 18 seconds!
The fat lady was getting warmed up, just the two pre-plot regularities to go, back onto the maps and speed tables. Regularity G was a shorty and SHOULD have been a doddle with just the two TPs, three speed changes, five miles, and ONLY six junctions. In the office Hugh manages the distance trip, and I do the timing trip and shuffle the paperwork. Unfortunately, Hugh was still in jogularity mode or certainly not quite with it and reset the distance trip after a couple of miles, I managed to recover from that but in the following discussion the distance got reset again and a speed change was missed. Result was silly big penalties at two TPs. Team talk for the final regularity as it was a biggy and the setting sun was becoming troublesome. Eighteen miles, six TPs, two PCs, just the four speed changes (some speed changes are more straight forward than others and six miles at 24 including a couple of TPs was challenging. Navigation was by herringbone with seven bones covering the first six miles then seven bones for the next mile and then fifteen bones covering the final six miles.
All went well, the talking to worked, and we had a pleasant afternoon run in the sunshine to the finish, total penalty of twenty seconds over the six TPs was good news. In my book a penalty of plus or minus five seconds is OK for me, we may run as Masters, but if there was relegation at the end of the season, we would expect to be nearer the bottom than the top.
Results at the finish showed us as 10th o/a on 18:12 with the winners on 14:35, but on a positive note we were only ive seconds away from 7th o/a. We run in cat 3 (1975-1981) but due to a shortage of Master entries we were merged with cat 4a (1982-1985) and cat 4b (1986-1990) and we ended up 4th in class. 4th in class wasn’t going to see us troubling the engravers so after Hugh had his tea we were packed up and away, however, if I’d read the regs properly and looked at the results a bit closer 1st, 2nd, and 3rd o/a were in our class leaving us 1st in class by default, but I didn’t spot this until Monday morning when the overall results including award winners was published.
New event in Somerset next for round 2 and a trip to Worthy Farm, watch this space.
