Abingdon CAR-nival , April 9th 2002
Driver: George Cooke
Navigator: Nikki Breslin
Vehicle: Peugeot 309 GTi 16v
Seeded: 94
Finished: 41st / 11th
Saturday 8th June 2.15 pm, weather's cr*p as usual. I arrive at George’s where he is waiting with Lawrence, all in the van and off we go to Abingdon. Half way down there George phones Dan Howell (who is also going) to see where he is. It turns out he is only a couple of junctions behind but said he is a bit worried about a dodgy tyre on his trailer. We pull into a service station 2 minutes later; the phone rings, its Dan. The tyre on the trailer has blown up - lucky for him his Peugeot 205 rally wheels fit.
Its about 5pm when we arrive, we take the Peugeot off straight away for noise and scrutineering and pass both with ease, then round to sign on and pitch our tents. By 6.30 pm we’ve managed to pitch both our tents and a gazebo up before it rains again. Two problems though; the tent is pitched next to an ant hill and the grass is taller than me - I’m still happy though because I’ve just seen a Darius ! (don't you mean Darrian? - Ed)
Sunday 9th June 7am, time to get up. Lawrence is off in the van to find a decent pitch in the service area (and meet Aron over a bacon and egg butte) while we have breakfast (beans on bread) and pack the tents away. We are car 94 and 9.41am is our start time. George is a bit on the nervous side because the last two times the car was here it failed to finish.
Stages 1 and 2 were nice and long, so much in fact we overtook a Suzuki on stage one and a Golf on stage two. For the first few stages it was nice and dry so some good speeds were achieved but by about stage 4 as usual it started raining causing lots of water to settle, so we were aqua-planing most of the way round, which added to the fun on some bends.
Throughout the day the course was split into two and then reversed which caused a lot of queuing between stages for about twenty minutes. We were very lucky that there were no real problems with the car so most services were spent socialising. By stage 10 the rain had stopped and most of the stage was dry. After stage 10 we were told 12 was cancelled so it was all riding on stage 11. We got into service to find out that Dan Howell had over shot a hairpin and was unfortunately out of the rally.
There were two parts of the stage where we had to cross a short section of grass, which after a hundred + cars was pure mud and at five mph the handbrake was the only thing to steer us through. The 11th and final stage was probably the best as the sun was back out it was dry and George was flying with a few sideward manoeuvres. Overall I thought it was a well organized and laid out event and a good weekend all round.
Thanks to Aron and Lawrence for a great job in service and well done to George who finally rid the ghost of Abingdon.
Nikki Breslin
