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International Rally Events |
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Horneland Rally 7- 8 March 2008 Report by Mike Spindle Pictures by Jan-Peter Ambaum
10 UK crews picked up the gauntlet, initially discovered by Graham and Val Gilmore of the Berks, Bucks and Oxon, branch of the HRCR. A generous overseas entry discount, which included meals/accommodation, was just the ticket to take a couple of days off work and enter what promised to be a tough, but rewarding event.
Two
classes Touring and Sporting
were offered, we naturally we all opted for the latter. The format was a full day on the Friday, ending with a served group supper in the hotel in Luxembourg, plus a short three hour night section, followed by a final action packed day on the Saturday. Mention must be made of the high standard and level of entry of the 133 cars that the Horneland Rally attracted. The formula of minimal plotting, tricky map scale and most likely press-on motoring, seems to go down very well in the Netherlands. For many (myself included) it’s close to the ideal road rally format.
During
scrutineering, cars were searched with more verve for illegal, large scale
maps and sat nav units, than for outlaw vehicle uprating.
During the Thursday evening meet up, Frank, kindly offered a special briefing for the English crews. Basically, the only maps to be used were the organisers approved ones, with pre plotted controls or other points highlighted. Plotting consisted of stringing these together, avoiding no go areas. There were no regularities. The twist was that 60% of these points don't exist in real life and where they do, there's a code board or rubber stamp to get in your road book in the correct sequence. This makes things very tricky, looking for something that might not be there, with deliberately large scale maps and many definitely, not as map, villages.
Prior
to the start itself, most of us seemed in high spirits, but within
seconds, the Gilmore’s MGB GT has ripped its exhaust off, and not much
later, John Taylor’s driver has back tracked the two nearsi Luckily there was a sweet little old lady on a bicycle and she spoke English. Within a stones throw is a nice farmer. He had a tractor and 20 minutes later car 48 is hauled out by our new (and suitably rewarded) neighbour and battle resumes. The trouble with rallying is that unlike other sports, you can’t get an equaliser and once time is lost, that’s how it remains. Still, never say die and the rest of the day goes reasonably well, although navigation wise there is no substitute for local knowledge. Those old disused roads and horse tracks can be sniffed out by the experienced local crews. To his credit John, recalls an unlikely candidate from a previous event and so things at last, begin to flow. Like Eppynt, if you have local knowledge and can get in the same groove as the organisers, you will have an advantage. As will prevail, this year’s overall winner (1300GT Escort) had won 3 out of the previous 4 Hornelands.
Not everyone is in the mood for the 3 control, three hour night loop section starting around 10 pm, but John and I are looking forward to it. It might appear odd to some, but it just seems to gel in the Twilight Zone and somehow it actually feels safer. Never the less, we end up going round in circles and are frustrated by the location of the seemingly impossible to find first control. The second, we sadly wrong approach, but the third we are squeaky clean and immaculate.
Some
of the issued map fragments were 1: 200,000 blown up to 1: 100,000 but
several were OLD 1: 50,000 – and I mean old, one was 1954. Bring out the
compass and the permitted Michelin 1: 200,000 Back at the hotel car park, its 1970 again and inside the raucous smoke filled bar, beer is flowing nicely and the Dutch crews are in no mood for sleep. Around 2.00am piles of complementary hotdogs appear and are hungrily wolfed down by all. A good night’s snoring and we are ready to hit the ground running. Some lovely dices with a well driven Dutch crewed, highly tuned Alfa, who later on, graciously extend their compliments to us, for the high standards of British engineering. However, in the excitement, we land a 200 point organisers speeding award, which oddly doesn’t improve our standing, one iota. I was thinking that the whole morning had gone swimmingly and so did the afternoon – but in a completely different way! We approached this fjord with about 300 spectators around and well… if you put Horneland Rally - Austin Healey Sleep’ - into YouTube.com you will see exactly what happened.
Anyhow, I’m not even
The final stint around the fields of Isniweti* is the only time John got really stumped by the navigation. But drive on chaps and eventually you’ll hit a town and a signpost - and so we did. Instead of cutting, we kept our head, did the math and realised our location, despite only 16 minutes to being OTL at the final control. Back on the attack, we were delighted to trip over the final secret control, but then horrified to see black smoke emanating from under the dash 1km and 3 minutes from being OTL at the Podium finish.
Panic
stations again – WTF – a melted wire casing, seemingly drawing massive
current is clearly the source, but why? No time to diagnose,
instinctively, we can only cut the wire; there’s no time to remove it.
Nothing to lose and it was luckily the right choice. Fire seems out and
we get to the podium finish 1 min inside OTL, 57th overall.
Best Overseas Award went to Colin and Bill in the amazing Amazon at 17th
overall. A fantastic
3 other British crews made the finish – Cherian & Stephen Roberts, TR4 (58th); Alan Smith & Paul Stephens, Minor 1000 (61st); Chris & Ben Parkes, SAAB 850 (62nd) Terry & Pip Secker (MGC) managed 4 legs with the remaining Brits completing 3 legs – Terry & Janet Powell (3500s), Warren & Jean Chmura (Citroen) and Val & Graham Gilmore (MGB). Poor Andy Belcher & David Burrows had the diff fail on their Triumph 2000 in England. They made sterling efforts to change it overnight, but the transmission cried enough at Ghent and they never made the start. The Horneland Rally brings together all the right ingredients and if you favour old school rallying, then why not have a go next year. You might just find you can still have your cake and eat it. *Isniweti (I’m sorry, no idea where exactly this is) To see pictures of all the cars that competed in the rally, go to www.fotojpa.com Click on Rough Guide to Road Rallying to see an explanation of this sport. |
de
wheels of our Healey into a ditch. What a sorry sight. Car beached on the
sump guard and John unable to get out. Just as well too. He’d have
probably hit someone if he could.
By
the time we reach the night halt, Colin Weekley and Bill Granger in the
Amazon are leading the UK contingent.
effort
for a first time on such a tough event.