The next morning held promise, it had stopped raining and the sun was trying
to break through the clouds, things were looking better. Had breakfast
with another competitor whose service truck we were sharing and sorted
out the details of were and how the service was to be carried out.
We heard that due to the rain, stage 1 had been canceled which relieved
a lot of teams. Stage 1 has the famous water crossing, which has claimed
many cars over the past years. This year because of the torential rain during
the preceeding days, the water crossing was 18 inches deep and the
organizers decided to throw the stage. I'm sure the spectators were very
disappointed, because this stage is the most spectacular.
At mid-day we had to present the car at the Parc Ferme, which traditionally
has been around the "Green" in the center of Wellsboro. Being a seed 6
team , we were stuck far away from the main area, and were given a start
number of 56 out of 63 cars total, which meant we had almost 3 hours
to wait before the actual start of the rally. It was very entertaining
walking around the "Green", meeting old faces, asking advice and genarally
soaking up the festive atmosphere.
Our time came up, we wound round to the start, took our place at the
under the "START" banner and were counted down. We were off. The first
transit was not too long, but was made up of mostly dirt roads. We
arrived at the start of special stage 1 with a 20 minutes wait to
our actual out time. This gave me some time study the route book and
try to make a mental picture of the course. Before long we were at the
start of the stage, we were counted down, 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 - GO.
And we were off, the stage was 10 miles long, most of it had a clay
surface with some gravel parts. I was driving conservatively,
getting a feel for the conditions and trying very hard to keep the car
between the trees. With in 2 miles of the start of the stage, we came
upon the first casualty, a car had gone off and was stuck in a gully, the
driver and co-driver sitting on one of the many boulders which bordered
the route. Within another mile we came upon our second casualty, another
car sitting off the road, jammed between 2 trees. By this point I was starting
to feel more comfortable driving and started to drive somewhat faster.
Unfortunately just as I was getting in to my rythmn, my co-driver shouted that
the flying finish was 1 mile ahead. We finished the stage with no incidents,
but came across 2 more abandoned cars in the last few hundred yards. I was
somewhat surprised how dry the first stage was considering that we had 1 inch
of rain fall in the 2 previous days.
The second stage was much like the first, except much longer. The conditions
were dry, and the road fairly wide (by rally standards), although there
were some corners which were very tight and narrow. In other spots the road
just went straight for several hundred yards. I chickened out on most of these
long straights preferring to be in 3rd gear, rather than moving up to 4th and
stomping on the gas pedal. During this stage we saw Tim O'Neil by the side
of the road, definately out of the rally. I do not know what problems he
had but it did not seem like a flat. I started feeling better during this stage
although I have to admit that I was still not feeling at ease, always
wondering what was round the next corner. Finally after 13 miles the stage
was over, and again we saw several cars abandoned along the road.
The 3rd stage was the worst of the day stages, I think it was a 16 miles stage,
consisting mainly of very fast sweeping turns connected with long meandering
straights. This would have been okay on a normal day, but the road surface
was VERY slippery. The top 1/2 inch of the road being a clay/water mixture
which detered me from going as fast as I had gone on stage 2. I made a couple
of mistakes on this stage, losing the car on a left hand corner, but managed
to regain control as the car was going sideways at 90 degrees to the turn.
The same thing happened on a right hand corner, a couple of miles down the
road. These were the only times when my co-driver ceased talking !! I was
somewhat thankful that the stage finished, because I did not enjoy driving
on those slick roads.
We than headed back to Wellsboro for the second Parc Ferme, where the absence
of cars was very noticable. We had a 1-2 hour stop here, and there was time
for the service crew to work on the car. We checked all fluids, tyres and
had a bite to eat. Before long we were on our way for the night stages,
which would encompass more than half of the stage miles. After arriving at the
start of stage 4, we had a long delay so we had time to chat to
other contestants. By this time we had been re-seeded and had moved up the
starting order very slightly. So many cars failed to make it to this stage
that we moved up by 9 positions (I think).
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