dsmith

Having followed the Rally in the past around Grizedale and Kielder, this year I went to Wales for the first time.

I managed to get to the following stages

Sunday
SS5 Blenheim
Cheltenham Service (10ft from the Imprezas!)

Monday
SS9 Crychan
SS12&14 Hafren (At the Sweet Lamb Bowl)

1) What a load of Imprezas !

As someone in '94 and '95 who thought I would never get to own an impreza and was most impressed to see what seemed like every single one somewhere on the Rally. Not alot's changed - Great to see lots of new V regs obviuosly driven by enthusiasts. Hafren Car Park was absolutely heaving with them (Very glad I had AWD!)

2) Blenheim

As Usual Sunday stages spoiled by petty minded marshalls being kings for the day.

3) Wales

As Usual Forest stages marshalled by superb knowledegable guys. (Hey who says only women can be fickle ?)

Drive into Wales on Sunday evening was absolutley fantastic. 50 Miles of great twisting A&B roads providing a great challenge. (which proved too much on one corner - anyone got a single Silver MY 99 16" Alloy ?:0)

Drive out of wales on Monday Evening was crap. 50 Miles of thinking "Please get me to a motorway , I'm Knackered)

4) Hafren

Fantastic atmosphere. Amateur fireworks better than the official ones though the timing of the fireworks over Macrae's car was very good. A great view of the cars - biggest noise was for the Minis. Queues on the exit somewhat spoilt the day though.

I wish I could have carried on for Tuesday aswell

Hope everyone else had a good time aswell, now I have to go clean that welsh muck off the car.

Regards

Dean
Red(or Brown) MY95 4Door with Baby Scoob on the rear parcel shelf.

Oh and Pete C - nice dance to 'Horny' in the interval between stages.

JAMES BUSHELL

We had a fantastic day, which started at Radnor at 7.20 a.m. due to the traffic we missed TWYI and went straight to Sweet Lamb (along with the rest of the coutry!).

Once we cleared the traffic on the A44,( homeward bound),the drive was fantastic on this very quick road (we followed it all the way to the M40) and recomend this route into mid - wales.

The latest results can be found on

dewi

I managed to get to Cheltenham on Saturday and Sweet Lamb 1 on Monday.

I've never seen so many Imprezas in my life! Also, I felt that driving into the car parks at Sweet Lamb was part of the entertainment. I was rather chuffed at first to be directed into the 4x4 car park, but it soon started to look like an off-road test course. We eventually got to a steep hill covered in very wet grass. At that point, a marshal directed the 4x4 cars down a track whilst the off-roaders carried straight on up the hill. The track we'd been sent down looked just like a special stage, complete with an up-hill hairpin. It felt very, very slippery and it gave me new respect for the job the rally drivers do. I dropped back from the car in front, then accelerated up to 40 mph for the hell of it. I felt like I was about to slide off the road -- beats me how these guys take the same roads at 100 mph.

I didn't find the marshalling quite as good as the last time I went to the Welsh forests in 1977 (yikes!) -- I'll have to tell you a story about the 1977 RAC Rally and an ice cream van sometime. Our view was obscured by some people who clearly shouldn't have been standing where they were, and the marshals seemed more interested in watching the action than in moving them on.

There were an unbelievable number of people at Sweet Lamb (good), but I think they'll have to do something about the traffic next year (bad). Sweet Lamb 1 started 40 minutes late because the rally cars were held up in traffic. With this number of spectators, they need to close off some roads to let the competititors get from stage to stage.

The roads were terrific, weren't they? It was almost worth going just for the drive up there. Being concerned about the long drive home, I left Sweet Lamb early and avoided all the queues on the way home.

I was followed by Colin McRae all the way from Rhayader back to the service halt at Builth Wells! I was on absolutely my best driving behaviour, as I'd have never lived down knocking Colin out of the Rally of Great Britain. I was hoping he'd blast past, but he seemed in no hurry and was quite content to hang behind.

P.S. Don't wash the mud off. Demon Tweaks probably sell authentic RAC rally mud for £10 a spray can.

Simon West

Did anyone who went to the Tywi stage carry on along that road up to Llyn Brianne ?
I went to have a look over this way on Monday afternoon after Builth Wells. What a road!! good visibility,tight harpins and blind crests only trouble was not much room for error. As one driver of a V-reg DBM 4-door (off road in a ditch) had found out. 'Hope things were OK'.
I had never been over this way before but was glad I did, had mucho fun even in my 2ltr Sport.

Simon

darren f

I also did SS12 and 14 in Hafren- top entertainment all round.
For SS12 we gave up on the 'bowl' (too crowded) and went for a hike up stage, to find a left-right-left sequence. I'm now completely humbled by the skill of Burns / Kankkunen / Makinen / McRae and Co. Completely and utterly awesome!!
Burnsy was so committed we even got splattered on a straight bit- even my wife said she considered this to be a privilege!

For SS14 we watched in the 'bowl'-World Rally Cars by the light of a firework display was quite a show. Some of low-level ballistic fireworks were a bit worrying though!

Great Scoob turn-out in the car-park, not many SIDC stickers though. It took 3 hours to clean the car inside and out and my driveway now has a patch that is a peculiar shade of muddy welsh-grey!!

All part of the fun. Can't wait till next year- will we be cheering for Richard Burns, World Rally Champion 2000?

johnfelstead

Hi all,

couldn't get to sweat lamb, worst traffic i have ever seen.

I found a back way in to mynheron and got there 5 minutes before the first car, dead lucky.

I stayed for the second run through and guess what?

Collin McRae crashed 10 feet past where i was stood!!

Biggest crash i have ever seen, There was a girl stood next to me filming it and it was shown on eurosport last night.

Me and my brother are on the footage, if you taped the eurosport coverage have a look at the film, just after he goes off you will see me jump onto the track, i had my rally team cap on and rally jacket. I was carrying a brolly aswell.

The radio reports said he slid off, like hell he did!

He took of at about 90MPH and hit an escort WRC, his sumpguard and wheels hit the side/roof of the escort, the focus sumersaulted at least once, i think twice and landed on its back end on a tree stump, then onto its wheels. The car was at least 100 foot away from the track when it landed, everyone there thought they must be badly hurt which is why you saw lots of people running to the car.

I couldnt believe it when they were both OK.
I have some photos of the two cars to get developed and will post them here when i get them back.

Carlos nearly did the same thing and freedy lou also spun on that spot just after collin had gone off.

the stage was then cancelled and the drivers went through in convoy. Gwyndaff had a bloody good look at the wrekage on his way through.

The car was that badly damaged part of the roll cage was outside the shell. Nicky and collin didnt talk to each other and walked off in different directions, you could tell it had skarred them as collin didnt move for about a minute.

All i can say is the focus is an amazingly strong car, thank god.

were any other sidc guys there, as it seemed like half the field i was parked in were skoobys.

Rapture@Work

had top time too...met loads of other 'real' people and am glad that the majority of scooby owners were decent chaps.

Me an' 30 other ignoranuses got pebbledashed even though we thought we were in the clear from shrapnel when RB ...er...blasted...toward and past...and ...gone before i could say...shiiiiiiiiiii Wonder how many others had that same experience...worth all todays leg ache though

Did Blenheim (waste of day and money) and Rhonda valley stages (the best!(SS18& SS20))....if ur thinking about going next year...DO IT! the best mototrsport day out i've had in years. Got some nice vids of me & mate playin with my STi on a quiet bit of stage like terrain. If only I could actually drive as well as the car can ......Is it nieve to think that the Scooby actually 'feels right' on the dirt rather than tarmac?

Kev

Great rally though....

Never seen so many Impreza's in one day, managed to get to Radnor and Sweet Lamb 1&2, great atmosphere, shame about the low flying fireworks, we got buzzed a few times you had to keep your eyes peeled for them instead of the cars !!

Mud....never seen so much in my life, it took 4 hours to jet wash the lot off and to get it all off the carpets.....but well worth it.

Me thinks they have to sort out the carpark/roads for the 3 days next year, it just ain't gonna cope if it continues to grow in popularity as it has this year.....

Kev

TJ

Agree with everyone, brilliant motorsport and Mr. Burns was in a class of his own.

Did Silverstone on Sunday followed by Crychan and Myherin Monday and First stage Tuesday morning.

Did not think too much to some of the marshalling though. One marshal wanted to park me 5 miles from the stage as the car park was full until I questioned it and his mate directed me to another car park entrance 0.5 mile down the road, 5 miles down atrack and I was 250m from the stage and there was only 4 cars in the car park!

Another marshal told me on one stage if I went left I was on stage 9 and right I would be on stage 10. Cobblers, Stage 10 was 15 miles away and the right turn took you closer to stage 9.

Last of all the biggest moan. Whilst parked at the Myherin Stage some jolly nice person (F****** Arsehole) decided that my PIAA driving lights would look better on his car than my RB5 and so unscrewed them, unplugged them and buggered off with them. There was very few scoobs in that actual car park apart from a blue STI I noticed. So if anyone notices an impreza that has a nice new set of PIAA lights on it instead of the usual crap impreza ones please ask to see his receipt. I am seriously p****d off about this as I thought Scooby owners were all nice people and true car enthusiasts. With the mounting hardware that is on the back of the lights I would have thought that they would be quite difficult to fit to anything else. Furthermore I would say that it wopuld take a scoob freak to notice that they were the far more desired type of lights.

Any help on this matter would be appreciated.

Cheers

Tony.

rsquire

Aaaah I have all the Welsh Stage maps, my 22B and I haven't been there for a looong time.

Best roads though.. Talybont to Cefn (over torpantau) and Tregaron to Abergweysn (sp)

Tregaron (The staircase to heaven)

Richard

[This message has been edited by rsquire (edited 27-11-1999).]

rsquire

Oh TJ..

Seriously P***Ed off that sort off thing could happen to another owner.

Sorry Dude specially in my old stomping grounds.

richard

jockc79

hmmmmmmmmm