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A year of farmer strikes and sunshine.

 

Our journey to our start city of Reims was full of thoughts and plans for the following week, not least what would the road situation be with the striking farmers blocking routes at random. Fortunately the the only tractors we saw were busily working in the fields.

After sailing through scrutineering and fitting stickers we rested before the long concentration leg to Monaco. Our car was second to leave over the ramp that evening and we were soon running first on the road.

After the gruelling 24 hour drive including negotiating an extremely busy Grenoble due to closed motorway, the farmers were out in force, we reached Monaco and were one of few cars to arrive completely penalty free.

 

An early start and straight to the calibration zone, calibration all configurations of tyres and we were ready for the competition to really start. Four regularities on the way to our overnight at Valence, all completed through varying degrees of good weather! The next two days saw eight more regularities and the car checked over at each of our pre determined service points, with the weather getting warmer as the rally went on we hit heights of 20 degrees C! A winter rally?

 

The last day and the run back from Valence to Monaco, three regularities and enough time made up for the car to have a thorough check over before the last two regularities, the night loop including the famous Col de Turini. Our run up to the service point between the two regularities was through very dense fog, challenging at times. The Turini stage was fine but the second on the other side of the mountain was through the fog and so sensibly cancelled for safety reasons. This just left a run back down into Monaco for the finish.

 

A great rally and no car issues saw us getting a fantastic result for a team ‘just using speed tables in the traditional spirit of the rally’. 

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