CarComputer monitor

The monitor for the in-car mapping computer has been playing up for a while.... it caused me problems when I was down at Forrest Lodge doing some mileage and route confirmations, and again when I went down to the Merrick Rally.

It came to a head when the monitor was totally unusable when I went to recce for the Bathgate Comp (fortunately I was able to follow the route on the Garmin GPS.)

Various investigations lead me to believe the problem is a dry joint in the low-voltage side (the problem exists whether running on mains it the 12V feed; in the car or in the house.)  I'll dig into the monitor some time, and try to find the dry joint, however I've had a look for a replacement monitor, just in case.

I've found an ebay company that sells the same monitor: £27 delivered!

I've ordered three :chuckle:

Pst... want to put on a demo?

Interesting Times....

Round two of the SCCC was cancelled (well, cancelled, then postponed) as the ground was booked for the wrong date, and couldn't be moved to the right date.
I've reasons to think that this was less accidental and more machination, but I can't be ar$ed with the politics of it, so I'm finding a new site and we'll just carry on from there.

I got a message from Knockhill ("Scotlands National Motorsports Centre") - they are running the Scottish Motor Show, and could I put on something that was "noisy and entertaining and related to Off Road." I'm sure I'm up for that :)
I roped in the help of Robert Agnew (let someone else take the strain of getting cars), and we have 7 different vehicles to show: a standard 90 (with a roll cage); an ALRC 88"; a modified 110; a rear-engined Tornado; a 100" QT Wildcat; a Warrior; and a Simbuggini.)
Knockhill want to be able to get the punters involved, and possibly have reason to talk to the competitors (questions like "car 12 is ahead of you, how do you plan to catch them?" and stuff like that) so we need a competition... timed to the nearest second, and all that - which means "Comp Safari."
I have a short course designed, just half a mile long, but with all the good bits in view of the public. We have the Permit, the people to run the event.... and even competitors.  It's all coming together!
SLROC are going to put up a stand in the main concourse, and I've a DVD coming down to show off Comps & Hill Rallies - SLROC will get the passing trade, and I'll get my promotion (with both my Hill Rally and my Comp Safari hats on to boot :grin: )

The "Borders" Hill Rally is also shaping up well - the regs are nearly ready (I wanted to see how Andy had written his regs for the regroups & things) - they won't be out when I wanted them (SCCC Round 3: 18/19 May), but it won't be far off that: we have most of the senior officials in place, and 90% of a budget drafted!

I've got two possible sites for a July comp: Ron is trying to get MOD ground up near Stirling, and Martyn is going back to a farm down Morpeth direction.

Scottish Comp, round one

Some old news first: There was the annual MSA Clerks & Stewards Seminar at the beginning of February, which was good (but very light on Cross Country), and a Cross Country sub-committee later in the same month (consultation papers are here: http://msauk.org/site/cms/newsarticle.asp?chapter=276&nid=1397 )

Anyway, that's the first round of the Scottish Cross Country Championships been and gone.

The weather forecast gave us mild concern, but the site is one of those that can be used in any weather.... actually, the wet weather works in our favour as the cars are slower!
When we set up on the Saturday, we thought we might even get an Alpine Winter Rally: white snow everywhere, and a course marked by the passage of vehicles.... sadly all we got was rain & more rain :sadness:
(for those of you who set up the "Borders" Hill Rally in 2010, or the "Perthshire" in 2002 - it was that wet!)

The shocking part of the whole event was the low turnout of competitors: we had people travel hundreds of miles (I'm not sure which is further away: Inverewe or Leeds), but was deeply embarrassing to have a great turnout of marshals, very few local competitors :cry:

The land-owner came up to watch, and spent the day shaking his head - bemused at the madness of people charging around in the mud.... but he had a smile on his face, and is more than happy for us to come back next year (and maybe even a Trial later in the year...)

All change at the Custard-Shed

As some of you know, every bloke needs to have a shed, somewhere to retire to of an evening and tinker with this'n'that. I, like every bloke, have a shed.... however the normal 6'x8' clapper-board shed at the foot of the garden is not really going to cut the mustard when ones tinkering & contemplation is in the arena of motorsport. No, my shed is 2,000 square feet of barn (shared with a classic-car restorer & a man slowly converting a 101 into a camper-van.).... with about a third again occupied by farm machinery & other stuff.

For the past three years, the doors at the west end of the barn (the wider end, and the end with the pit) has been blocked off and we have used the doors at the east end - which has lead to a long narrow workshop, with cars stored either side of the pit.

The farm want to change things around: they want to take over the eastern door and 450 square feet of the floor-space I'm currently using, so I'm taking over 450 square feet of space currently occupied by farm machinery & stuff. As you can imagine, the juggling of things is not easy (given that about the only thing that can be left outside the shed whilst the shuffle happens is my caravan!)

Still, I reckon that we will end up with a better (read "wider") working area, and the space for storing long-term projects (not dead cars, thank you very much) will now be well away from any space we want to work in.

There is some debate, at the moment, as to whether the wee alcove space we have acquired should become a workshop, or have a couple of cars stuffed into it.... but I think "workshop" makes more sense in the longer run.

Still - the shuffle keeps me out the pub :)

The Roger Albert Clark Rally

Whoever says you can sleep in the back of a discovery..... they're lying. Well - either their short, or they're lying! With the back seats folded up and most stuff either under the car on on the front seats... I'm about 18" too long!

I'd agreed to go and marshal on a stage at the rally.... In twiglees, no less (just over the road from Castle O'er)! I combined it with a trip to Forrest Estate to collect the stuff we'd left behind 'cos we'd run out of space to bring it up at the end of take-down. (In the end, I couldn't fit it all in.... there are still a couple of hundred stakes down there!!)
I then drove over to the start of Twiglees, and set up to sleep in the back of the Disco. Whichever way I lay, I just could not stretch out.... so had a broken & fractured sleep - and woke up with cold feet, aching knees, sore hips, and a pain in the small of my back. Mind you - with three layers + padded romper-suit + 13.5 tog duvet, the rest of me wasn't cold :)

Sunday dawned.... as I was boiling the kettle & making a couple of hot rolls. The lads in the van that arrived during the night (I must have been asleep at that point!) told me it had dropped to -8 overnight.... which would explain the ice on the inside of the window :chuckle:

Anyway - it's strange the people you meet on a Rally stage: I wasn't surprised when Big Eck turned up; however the two lads in the van run a garage in the village I live near, and the small bundle of wrapped up person turned out to be Cat Ratter!

The stage itself was largely un-eventful: one car managed to spin it into a ditch a few hundred yards down the road from me (and I'm not build for running!!), however driver & navigator wanted to stay with their car rather than come into the (relative) warmth of my car (and the stage wasn't going to be stopped as the course was passable)..... so I gave them a reflective tabbard and a warning triangle, and left them to it.

The drive home was fine, however the water nozzles for the screen-wash froze up, so I was washing the window with Mr Muscle [need to be below 30mph to spray it sensibly] and having over half-a-tonne on the back of the car made some of the back-road corners.... "interesting".

But it's snowing today, and the world is looking far more fun :D :D

The 2010 Borders Hill Rally

Well, another year passes by, and another damn good event brightens the world for quite a few people.

With the help of Forrest Estate, we had managed to increase the field to 50 entries, and every single place was filled as the cars started the opening round. At one point, we were up to 58 entries for the event, however the second half of the motorsport season retired a few cars, and health issues forced a few drivers to reassess their plans.... but it all worked out in the end!

A huge amount of work by a large number of people saw a brilliant event (the MSA Steward was reported as saying he didn't think he had ever been to a single venue rally that had been as well organised.... and that MSA Steward has been to many events over the years!) Planning takes many forms - from stage routes and the time schedule, to getting everyone into the (tight) service yard & getting the burger van to open for breakfast :)

We set up in three days, with a crew of about twenty people working hard to ensure everything was ready. The weather was not kind - continual rain kept the water levels high, and played havoc with car electrics as wet coats dripped water everywhere....

The event itself was brilliant - I started the day chaperoning a pair of media students who were part of a group filming the event (I think there were a dozen media folk at the event, in all!), then ended up running the Arrivals station for SS5 & SS8 (never done it before, but you pitch in where needed.... and actually it's a doddle to do!)
Sunday was much quieter for me - enabling me to do what I needed to do: go and talk to competitors, and get a feel for what we should be doing in 2011.

Much Kudos to Rupert for making us all do our wee bits & making the whole greater than the sum of the parts; and to Campbell for a stages design that was an elegant use of the limited options. Special mention to Colin, for pulling a slew of new faces into the marshalling pool as well as gathering in some familiar faces (and November is a busy month for marshalling - I'm back down to the Borders area for the Roger Albert Clark rally this weekend!) and to Sharon, for getting everyone into the tight service area (with not much friction, and very few cross words)

As noted above, we had 50 starters. 35 Finished the event... which is pretty good, considering Hill Rallies are about endurance, not outright speed: Preparation is paramount. There are a couple of videos on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jaKO5Qg0Qs is from a regular at the scottish comps, and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRriNfA-dV0 is some in-car footage from the new Britpart car (on SS1 - so this is the very first time he's seen this stage. Remember there are no pace-notes, so he's literally driving it as he sees it!)

Results are here: http://www.nersresults.co.uk/html/2010/sb_hillrally/

Takedown was good: John & Diana pulled in most of Sections 2 & 3 by lunchtime on Monday, whilst Colin and I cleared the Rally HQ area (take down the big SLROC marquee & return thirty-odd pallets to the estate workshop-yard.) Tuesday saw a big help from Forrest Estate again, as they send a couple of people off to pull in Section 1, whilst Diana and I took down the smaller SLROC marquee and finished clearing Section 2.
By 4pm on Tuesday, all stage furniture was in; all signage was either away with Campbell or in my trailer; all sticks were away with John or Charlie, or lying ready for me to pick up; and all tents were packed away.

A big thanks to everyone involved: competitors, without whom there would be no event to run; marshals, without whom the event would not even start; the organisers, without whom nothing would have happened at all; and Forrest Estate, who have already asked us back next year (and Brian wants to be '0' car again!)

Bring it on!!!

The Perthshire, 2011

We had our meeting (well - five of us had a meeting & two emailed comments.... and perhaps that is partially indicitive of the problem) to discuss the where-we've-been and what-to-do of a Cross Country event in July.

We know that there are major issues with competitor numbers over the years. Just looking at the raw numbers we can see that: 42 in '07; 36 in '08; 24 in '09; and just 10 entries in 2010!

There are two (maybe three) reasons for this: road legality, VOSA & cars have moved on; its the same old stuff every year & boring now; and maybe one could lay some blame at other events crowding out the space.

1. Road Legality is a big issue: it takes time, effort & money to get a car sorted for an MOT/SVI (the Borders wins from this to a certain extent, in that cars can bypass all that expense and still have some of that "Hill Rally" experience). A lot of the current crop of "Road Legal" cars would get pulled over (it claims its a white 1972 range rover, but it looks nothing like a range rover, and is definitely not white), with the fear of being impounded/crushed by an overly zealous beaurocracy.
   There are road-legal cars, but are they as tough as the old-school vehicles? (and an extra £20K is a lot to spend on a toy!) - not with just one event in the year requiring the toy to be road-legal, there will not be many people who are prepared to go that route.
   
2. The Perthshire hasn't changed in 15 years. Well, yes & no.... and re-read that sentance again: "15 years." That's a long time for an event to run! Yes, one could say that the event hasn't changed, in that we are still using the same core sites that we used five years ago, however one could say the similar things about the Scottish Comps, NORC, AWDC, & even the BCCC (there's very little new ground out there to be had, and unless you have an "in" with the land-owner, most are not interested in a bunch of hooligans ripping their ground to shreds).
   Like any events, the "Perthshire" has been loosing ground: as farms are split-up & sold off; as Land Owners grow weary of the small return for the amount of hassle it puts them through; as farming practices change; etc.
   I have a 2006 Hill Rally mug in front of me - here are the sites that have gone in the last five years: Athron Hall, Candy, Clow, Dollar, Law Hill, Glen Tarkie, Heatheryleys, Knockhill, Lochelbank, Montalt, Rossie Ochil, Struie, Tillyrie. We have been getting new ground - not enough open hill-side for my preference (the clue is in the name HILL rally club), however new ground will rarely be in the same locality as the exisitng sites (not a problem for the comps, but a big factor for a multi-venue event!)
   
3. Being crowded out by other events is another issue: there are, I think, something like 27 "national" comp safari events in the UK. The BCCC is an obvious one, and then NORC, AWDC & the SCCC all cater for competitors from a wide geographical area... and we are all competing for the same 'customers.'
   Competitors need time between events, both to service (and repair) vehicles, and to gather the money to enter the next event. Two weekends is a minumum, three weekends is good, and four if it has been an arduous event. Organisers, therefore, need to plan when they hold events to maximise the number of competitors they can get, whilst also providing the greatest opportunity for competitors to take part in the "major" events.
   Competitors will, obviously, choose which series they prefer, and if there is a dates clash, they will need a lot on incentive to miss an event from their own series.

So where does this leave us for 2011?

Well, there will definitely be no Multi-venue cross-country rally (the classic Hill Rally) in 2011.

I am unsure if there is merit for a Single-venue, multi-stage rally (the sort of event we do at the "Borders") in 2011 - particularly as we share competitors with the BCCC, and there is just one weekend between a BCCC round and the "Perthshire."

We, the Scottish Hill Rally Club, will run something - we need to as history is littered with events that have taken a year or two off, and then lost the date as another organisation has appropriated it.

I think the future for the "Perthshire" needs looked at - we need to go "Bigger" and "Better": We need to go National A; move to be three days; have more competitive milage.... and accept that the cost of the event will go up.
This will require major sponsorship (£1,000 here, £200 there is not enough.... we need to look at £5000+), and a LOT of work!

..... but we (I) need to talk to competitors, to see what will interest them -- Roll on the "Borders"