Edinburgh Trip - February
2001
Nuit Blanche 2001 - A competitors
perspective.
Driver - James Woods
Navigator - Gareth Jackson.
The Nuit Blanche navigational
rally organised by Edinburgh Motor Club formed part of the Scottish
and Irish Universities chanpionship and was held on the 24th February.
The story of the clubs trip
is now well known. Five cars and crews set off for Edinburg on friday
afternoon, arriving at various times due to people taking different
roads and the miracles of satelite navigation. We found exactly the
place we were looking for, the only problem being it was about 5 miles
the wrong side of edinburgh!! Over a mobile "Arthurs seat" got turned
into "Arthur Street" and hence the confusion. Either that or someone
was sampling scottish beers and was starting to lose the clarity in
their voice. Paddy ??
Unfortunately
due to the outbreak of the dreaded foot and mouth saturdays programme
was cut as the autotests had to be cancelled. Instead a joint driver
/ navigator table top was arranged. This was to give us all practice
at plotting a route on a map using the scottish form of notes. This
provoked some interesting coments such as "But it doesn't work." Other
problems came up like is going round a roundabout the wrong way a valid
clue. All old hat to scottish crews but for those like me doing a scottish
rally for the first time it was definately interesting.
The main reason for us going
was the rally on the saturday night. It snowed on saturday afternoon
and then rained, forming slush. This then froze making driving conditions
very difficult. The first challenge for us was getting out of the car
park without hitting the wall by the road (yes I guess we should have
called it a night at that point.)
We found the rally quite
enjoyable, apart from the major lack of grip. We were getting on pretty
well on the clues and had managed to only drop a few minutes of lateness
despite sliding around a lot on the ice. This became more signifigant
about half a mile from TC10 when I lost the car on a quickish right
over a bridge. Result, reasonably heavy shunt and some hedge surfing
(on the navigators side of course) before finally landing back onto
our wheels. We didn't hit anything particulary solid just a lot of soft
things. I remember saying "Ah well that didn't hurt too much- wonder
if it still goes". It didn't.
So if anyone has a cheap
shell for a nova, get in touch.....
Also check out the photos,
if you can see a bit thats straight and you want it let me know. Most
of the car is now for sale.
The other car not to make
it home was also a nova, this time suspension failure was to blame.
A damaged spring failed and the continual banging lifted the turret
off the inner wing.
At least the two shells had
a good and proper end.
Two of the other crews did
very well, pocketing silver ware with the final crew finishing a very
respectable third in class. Especially as this was the navigators first
outing. Better not tell the scottish crews.......
Quotes of the weekend...
- "Wonder if it still goes"
James
- "Anyone got a welder"
Andy
- "Wooop wooop woop" Jonny
- "We was robbed" P****
- "Ahh, its alot easy when
they work" Jonny
- "To finish first, first
you've got to finish.
- " Mmmmmmmmmmm "Its not
the pace of the event that bothers me its the sudden stops at the
end" Keith
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