Champagne, Twice In 7 Days?

In one not so easy week and the small matter of 4000miles and a different continent, my second place in Missouri set me up well for the taste of champagne just 7 days later. Not a feat i've achieved in a while.

The entire drive home from Cumbria this past Sunday required a delicate balance of foglights, sunglasses, and wipers as the famous British weather once again did it's best to confuse the hell out of it's inhabitants. However, having got to the end of two rather chaotic but hugely fun and eventful weeks, I had no reason to rush to the snow showers awaiting me.

Finishing up as the leading Fiesta in the first round of the championship, the Malcom Wilson Rally, was really not where we expected to be after the events of just 24hrs previous. After taking some time out of our main rivals on the first couple of stages and holding a 20+ second lead, we suffered a car problem and my initial thoughts of 'that's it, all over' were proven wrong after cruel luck struck not only Kris Hall and I but our main comepetitors as well. They way things went, typically un-predictable what with it being Rallying, ended up with us needing to go flat out for the final 3 stages to re-take the lead. Long story short, we did and it was alright on the night, but it wont quite as straight forward next time im sure.

Heres to a competitive year and plenty more action in the 2009 Fiesta SportTrophy.

Pictures thanks to Gary at www.Songasport.co.uk

Has It Really Been 2 Weeks?

Wow, where did the last two weeks go? And why have I not written all about it? Oh well, better late than never, as they say.

As I sit here in my familier, slightly overly cluttered home (for the first time in 2009 I might add), staring at the familier grey British skys and thinking interesting thoughts, I try to think of some funny stories from the last couple of weeks but get a strange kind of guilt come over me. For what? I hear you ask. Well, i'll tell you; for leaving my blog unattended for more than ten days or so. Can you believe it. Wierd, a few years back, before blogs, social networks, instant updates and numerous other methods of interupting people while they are trying to get on with something useful, I wouldn't have thought twice about weather people knew where I was or even cared what I was doing. And that might have gone on for months or years, not a mere ten days!

So last you read, I was attempting a road rally in Vermont. Cold, snowy, middle of the night type Vermont. And yes, this was the type of road rally I have virtually zero experience in and the same type of event that everyone figured I would have experience of, measured in years. So to cut to the chase, was it fun? Yes. Did I learn something? Yes. Did I get lost in the middle of the forest somewhere near Canada in minus something crazy temperatures and get found by the bears? No, well not the last part anyway... However I must say, the roads were great and just driving the route without worrying about anything else was a lot of fun,

I won't say i'll rush back to navigate on road rallies, but if you enjoy calculating varying average speeds on the fly whilst measuring time in hundredths of a minite and following 20year old maps combined with John Buffum's somewhat deliberately confusing intstructions, in the middle of the night, I say go for it! And if you succeed, you'll be a better navigator than me, if not co-driver.

After spending a few days back in Boston and stumbling across some great restaurants, taking a walk or two on the beach and pondering my next move before I knew I had to get back to England, all of a sudden the next great opportunity landed right in my inbox. Did I want to compete in the 100AW rally, round 2 of the Rally America series? Of course I did! Having competed on this event for the last three years and each time having a completely different set of weather conditions I knew it would be a challenge. And one I was going to make the most of. After some frantic flight booking and paperwork/venue/personel arranging I flew west and landed in not my favourite city, St.Louis, Missouri. Ok, thats a little unfair, i've just not spent enough time there to bump into things I like, in fact, i've never spent any time there really...

I stepped off the plane and into the evening air and found my way to my hire car. A suitably useless member of staff then tried to charge me 70% more than my quote and then he figured i'd love to pay for a Sat. Nav. system at some extortionate daily rate (maybe he knew about my navigation 'issues' at the road rally?). Nope, little did he know how prepared I was. I had memorised a google maps screen shot and written some seemingly random numbers on some paper which later turned out to be road and junction numbers....clever eh?

The following morning, I headed to our test venue to meet Andrew Comrie-Picard (ACP) and the NOS Energy Drink Rally Team. Our test venue of choice was a 2,600 acre Bison Ranch which just happens to have miles and miles of gravel roads that they let the rally cars loose on once a year. This place, though, is amazing. Family owned and operated, they have over 2000 Bison and ship meat the world over whilst being an amazing corperate events venue and generally a cool place to spend some time.

We had a great test day, the car was faultless and the guys from NOS very much resembled your typical energy drink reps; cool, very exited to be there, great to work with and full of energy and stories!

Heading into the event we were in a positive frame of mind, and as it turns out it was with good cause. A day of recce, 2 intense days of competition, and over a hundred pages of pace notes later, we finished in second place. First time co-driving for Andrew and we had the pace to set fastest times all weekend. Happy with that.

After plenty of celebrations, some, but not much sleep, a drive back to St. Louis, a flight to Boston, 18hrs spent battleing 18inches of snow there, the roughest flight you can imaging back to London, a bus to oxford, then a drive home and a little more sleep, here I am! Refreshed and ready to head north to the next event tomorrow...

More about that later, for now, rest easy....