The Route is Published

The organisers have published the P to P Rally route today. There are some big daily drives of over 600km.  I haven't had a chance to follow the route on the Atlas yet but it looks daunting.

In other news the car has been fixed and is ready to be shipped to Annecy for the Alpine Challenge.

More Trouble

It seems that our broken half-shaft was caused by something more serious. A tooth sheared off a cog in the gearbox, causing the clutch to seize which in turn put stress on the differential creating the problem with the half shaft. So now we need a new gearbox and clutch . Oh dear.

Flying Scotsman Postscript

It seems that we still have a lot to learn about this form of rallying. To some extent it's possible to ignore the set piece events and simply treat the whole affair as a great drive with superb organisation. however, some of the off road events are a hoot whilst the tricky timed map reading events can be simplified if you focus on not getting lost and let the timing take care of itself by driving moderately. That ensures a reasonable score and because lots of people foul up or break down you start to creep up the rankings.

Here's a few more pictures of the event:

Flying Scotsman Day 3

It's all ended in ignominy for car 28 - and it was going so well too.  Our clutch failed yesterday meaning that we tried to spend our time in third gear today. After a manoeuvring exercise at the Highland show ground we went onto Knockhill racing circuit where the car flew round like a Transit Van on steroids.  It may have been too much because after a couple of perfectly executed regularity tests through the Scottish countryside and a bit of drag racing through The grounds of Scone Palace, the wheels came off our rally run.  And I mean literally the wheels came off - one of our rear half shafts sheared and the wheel bent like a nasty broken bone. We were out of the race, and within sight of lunch too.

Three hours later we arrived at Gleneagles on a flatbed transporter courtesy of the RAC.  The finishing cars were being piped across the line but our photo was taken with us at the chequered flag on foot and carrying our bags.

Still the idea of the rally was to test us and the car and that we have done.  Now for some whisky.

Flying Scotsman Day 2

Day 2 of the Flying Scotsman, starts from Newcastle having driven 250 miles over the Yorkshire Dales the previous Day.

It's my turn to drive and to be honest I find it necessary to make several trips to the loo beforehand - nerves have taken hold.

The structure of each day involves driving some public roads interspersed with various driving tests either on private land or along quiet C roads.  Unless you execute these tests to within a 98% tolerance (or so it seems) your score goes to maximum penalties.  Richard and I have collected a lot of maximum penalties.

After coffee we go spectacularly off route because we weren't told about a change to the directions. As a result our chances of winning have vanished...

Northumberland and the Scottish Borders provide some amazing scenery and beautiful empty roads. With the hood down and sunglasses on it's a magical ride.  All along the way people are out to see us go past. Whole schools came out on Friday to cheer us and everywhere the cars raise a friendly wave. There certainly are some wonderful vehicles on the rally but although ours is humble it looks good in a photo and plenty of people come and chat to us about it.

The day ends with a burnt out clutch, which is patch repaired in the car park. It's not clear whether we should limp straight to the Gleneagles or try to complete the rally.

Flying Scotsman Day 1

We were so busy yesterday that there was no time to post a blog entry about day 1 of the Rally.

We ended the day 57th, which wasn't so bad and we should have been 47th because we got a 10 min penalty which we don't think was correct.  In fact we could have been 37th but we got a 10 min penalty that we could easily have avoided.  However that's what this trip is all about - learning by mistakes.

We have I think made every mistake possible.  We've gone left when the instructions said to go right. We've said go left when we meant to say go right. We've said keep it to your left when we meant keep it to your right.  We've said, "mind the back of that Bentley as you are reversing....oh shit (well I expect the insurance will pay)".  We have had a gold star for our Regularity tests. And we have the maximum penalty.Although we had our problems lots of people didn't make it at all.

The day finished (after exchange of insurance data with the dented Dutch Bentley owner) with having the brakes fixed and an attempt to fix our Brantz tripmeter, which wasn't showing interval distances. This took three hours and in the end it was realised that we could just use the Brantz a different way and achieve the same result. By this time dinner had finished and we still had to go over the maps.

Scenery was to die for and sunny all the way. What a great country Britain is.

Flying Scotsman

We are now in Leeds at the start of the Flying Scotsman Rally, which takes three days to get to Gleneagles just outside Edinburgh.  It's doubtful whether any of the countryside is preparation for Mongolia but the disciplines of map reading and driving skills should help us in the future.

There's an enormous amount of information about the rally and how it works.  More than we can properly take in. On the five mile practice route we took the wrong turn twice and arrived a massive two minutes late (not because of taking the wrong turn but because of traffic problems).  It looks set to be a series of massive cock ups tomorrow when the race starts.

The sight of over 100 beautiful cars is quite wonderful and what's more so is the noise they all make - sublime.  Some of the cars here are worth hundreds of thousands of pounds and are immaculate.  CLM 570 looks positively scruffy next to them.  On the other hand there's no point in taking an immaculate car across MongolIia

Brantz Training

A final trip to RPS before the car goes off to Leeds by CARS Europe for the start of the Flying Scotsman.

Simon at RPS has volunteered to give us a lesson on how to use the Brantz tripmeter installed in the car.  We nod along but I'm pretty sure it's going to be a major bog up when the time comes on Friday.

We now have two plastic boxes of parts and equipment in the boot, a fuel can, a first aid kit and the jack and its already full up.  Not sure where the kit is going to go on Peking to Paris.

Bright red seat belts have now been fitted, which look very cool.

Test Run

20th March and time for a proper test run in the car.  First we practiced changing a wheel - lucky Steve at RPS was on hand to help us...

Then we drove across to Burford and took in 100 miles of Cotswold countryside including as much variety of road condition and test of map reading skills as we could.  The car was absolutely fine, mostly running at around 86 degrees (it can run hotter than normal because we've got Evans coolant in the radiator instead of water.  It did go over 100 on one of the hill climbs we inserted in the route but seemed okay.  Its a very smooth ride and the engine seems very happy.  The steering is still boat like but you do get used to it.  The drum brakes are something else - best to change down in to second gear and let the gearbox do some of the work.

the car is certainly good for a steady 60mph and we briefly hit 70 but I'm not sure it would cruise all day at that speed.roadholding on the new tyres (commercial van spec) is good in the dry but might be trickier in the wet.

the only problem we had was that our instruments failed but RPS has now fixed that.

Professional photographer and mate, Tim Graham followed along in his AMG Mercedes and took some great photographs. As you can see the car is wearing its Flying Scotsman plates and numbers.

More Cash Out The Door

On 25th Feb 2015 we took another visit to RPS where the car was theoretically ready. However, we took with us a checklist from 'How to Win a Marathon Road Rally' that added another couple of thousand pounds worth of work to be done. Still better that than be stuck in the Mongolian desert with a broken car.

Photo left is of the new rear suspension, which looks like it will take Mongolia in its stride.

Moving On

We've entered the Flying Scotsman Rally as a practice run. This takes competitors from Yorkshire (in the North of England) to Gleneagles in Scotland - home of the famous glof course. This is a distance of some 250 miles using main roads.

Our car is located at RPS in Witney, near Oxford whereas our base is North London so the question arises of how to get the car to York for the start of the rally and back to Witney from Scotland at the end.

After much discussion and some research we've decide to have the car transported to York and from Gleneagles.  All the other options are full of problems.  Richard has obtained various quotes and the best firm seems to be CARS Europe who will charge £1000 +VAT for the round trip.  They use rather luxurious fully enclosed transporters and insure the car for up to £20m, which should be more than enough!

Born to Rally

I found this picture of my sister and me.  Looks like the Buick was meant to be.

The Work Continues

I'm posting this in February but it relates to a quickie visit I paid to the team at RPS during January.  The entire fuel system has been replaced with something much simpler and hopefully more reliable, the brakes, gearbox and clutch have all been tinkered with to make them work properly, the seats have been anchored more safely and the driveshaft completely inspected. Some nasty metal shards were found in the driveshaft that would never have been detected without RPS's thorough inspection and which could have led to grief on the rally.  The shaft is being sent away to specialists for repair.

So far RPS has spent £10,000.  It looks like another £10,000 before they are finished. Merde!

After this visit I sent the mechanical checklist from "How to Win A Rally" to the team at RPS to cross check that they had picked up on some of the simple but crisis averting ideas in Alan Smith's book (coconut car mats that can double up as grips for getting you out of sand - I would never have thought of that, or that you tie them to the rear bumper so that you don't drive off and leave them behind).  I think there were a few new ideas for RPS and many that cost only a few pounds.

The Pace Steps Up

RPS has moved into new premises and so has our car.  Here's a short video of what the workshop looks like, including our Buick.  We are promised it will be ready by early 2015.

Navigation, Navigation, Navigation

Way back in July we took a day's instruction in rally timekeeping and map reading from Alan Smith - Author of How to Win a Road Rally, Unfortunately I misplaced my notes and so have only now been able to write the day up.

Alan certainly knows his stuff and is a patient teacher. He sat in the back of our family car whilst Richard and I took it in turns to be driver and navigator.  Alan has a pre-set route around the Chilterns and we practised reading OS maps, using Tulip diagrams and race timing.  It was hard - exhausting even.  Although we didn't make too many mistakes the level of concentration was considerable and I for one was shattered the next day.  We would also have gone off route on our first lap if Alan hadn't corrected us. His cardinal rule is "Route first, Timing second" - on the basis that you can't win if you are not on the route.

I'm not sure how much of this will stick.  Alan gave us a sample page from the 2013 Flying Scotsman timing sheets and looking at it now it's still gobbledegook.

The Work Begins

Another trip to Rally Preparation Services to see the Buick.  RPS has been working on cars for the Road to Mandalay rally and the workshops were just shipping these vehicles out. This made room for CLM 570 - our Buick - and we needed to sit down with the team at RPS to discuss how much work we wanted done.

Alistair is our project manager and he took us through the Road Test and Report prepared by RPS.  We told him that we didn't have an aspiration to win the Rally but wanted to finish in good order and enjoy the ride (beware any fellow competitors reading this as it may all be gamesmanship and bluff).  This dictated how and where we wanted to spend money.

Another Buick was in the workshop and we got a chance to look underneath it, which was most interesting.  The basic car is as strong as an ox but it's the various modern add ons that lie exposed to road damage.  Hopefully with CLM 570, RPS will ensure the car is protected from trouble - as long as we drive steadily.

Also in the workshop was Phil Garratt / Kieron Brown's Chevrolet Fangio Coupe, which has won the PTP twice. it still looks good even without most of the front end.

We're In!

We received an email from the Rally organisers telling us that 70 out of 100 places had now been filled on the Rally and that no more places were available for post 1945 cars.  We decided that we had better get our own entry in fast and so we've sent off our form and money. Gulp.

Proverbs

So the big day has arrived and Richard and I drive up to Whitney to meet Paul, the vendor of the Buick, and go through the handover process.

It's a beautiful day  in the Cotswolds and Paul and Richard are already there when I arrive.  The car looks great and much bigger than in the photos - it weighs 1.5 tonnes unladen so on a rally it's total weight is around 2 tonnes.  Paul is extremely knowledgeable and takes us through the car mechanically and I become increasingly terrified as he does so because every other sentence starts, "when this goes wrong you just unscrew this bit and put a new one in - easy." To a mechanical novice like me it sounds anything but.  Paul has brought along two lever arch files of information on the car. It was originally built in Canada and shipped to South Africa, which is why it is Right Hand Drive.

Richard and I take the car for a drive. It feels enormous on the road and we both drive about three feet out from the kerb.  The steering is very imprecise, more like steering a boat than a modern car and the brakes are something else - at the first junction I thought it wasn't going to stop. The engine is new, producing 120 bhp against the original 90. Paul trashed the old one on the Inca trail in South America and the new engine was built in the US around an original 1936 Buick block.  It looks and sounds wonderful and the car burbles along like Mr Toad's, with it's open top and yellow and red paintwork the car attracts a lot of attention.

It's only got three forward gears, the gearbox is like stirring porridge and it's easy to smash your hand on the dashboard when you change up to second. Paul thinks fitting a four speed box would up the top speed to 80 mph from the present 70 mph.

Whilst we are at RPS, the winners of the 2013 Peking to Paris Rally - Phil Garratt and Kieron Brown - pull into the yard and give the Buick an admiring glance. They won in a 1930's Chevrolet, not unlike the Buick and also prepared by RPS.

We hand the car over to Simon at RPS who is going to check it over and then put it into storage until he has room in the workshop to undertake the upgrades we want. Then its off to the pub in Filkins - The Five Alls - where we have a splendid lunch with friends who live nearby. That evening both Richard and I are at a fancy dress party where I go as Dick Dastardly from Wacky Races - Richard refuses to go as his sidekick, the dog Mutley, much to my disappointment. 

2 Kings

Richard has quite an extensive correspondence with Paul , the vendor of the Buick.  Paul has a huge knowledge of rallying and a whole stable of cars, mostly Bentleys, that he uses for rallying.  He suggests a compromise price of £55,000 but as part of this he will deliver the car to RPS in Whitney Oxfordshire from his home in Salcombe - a good 7 hour round trip - and he has eight boxes of spare parts.  The deal is struck but Richard and I are away skiing for a week so delivery has to be deferred until our return. In the meantime Paul sends us some incredibly useful spreadsheets about what he takes on a rally and what he now leaves behind. He has self-published many books about his adventures:

Paul's Blurb Page

1 Kings

Simon has driven down to Salcombe in Devon to see the car. It was dreadful weather and parts of the country were in flood, so we are very grateful to him for his efforts.  He's written a report for us on the car that basically says it a gem but needs attention. On the phone Simon tells me that he would spend about £10,000 on the car and his report recommends a price of £50,000 compared to the ask of £60,000.  Richard sent the report to Paul, the vendor, asking for his views (click on the jpeg files below to read the report):