National Rally; July 2004
My Last National Rally?
As the closing date for entering the 2004 National Rally neared I inquired of my 2003 Rally comrades whether they felt like doing the Rally again. The answer was a big fat no from all three of them.
Alan had a party to go to the weekend of the Rally. There's a surprise?
With his 2003 tri-nations behind him, Dave felt he had graduated to the Round Britain Rally for 2004.
Steve just felt that he had done the Rally enough times. I feel the 2003 night stage finished him off (and Dave).
Given the pervading apathy towards the 2004 Rally I was thinking I would give it a miss until I heard that the Rally had moved south this year and that there was actually a control point at Wimborne. A week before the closing date I entered for the Rally. I'm destined to be one of those guys you see on the Rally with a clipboard, wax cotton gear and an old BMW. (Description sound familiar to you?)
My route started at Shaftesbury and took me to Wimborne, Dorchester, Yeovil, Glastonbury, Weston Super Mare, Chipping Sodbury, Melksham, Swindon, Abingdon, Burford, Andoversford, Worcester, Cleobury Mortimer, Bromsgrove, Meriden, Leicester, Melton Mowbray, Kegworth, Ashbourne, Buxton, Congleton, Stoke on Trent and finally Uttoxeter. I started at 2pm on Saturday 3rd July and finished at around 7:30am on Sunday 4th July with 1 hour stops at Swindow (around 7:30pm Saturday) and Leicester (around 2:30am Sunday). At the finish, Uttoxeter, I had a nice breakfast followed by a couple hours of sleep sharing a floor with a good number of my fellow competitors. July 4th is my lad's birthday so I left Uttoxeter for home around 11am arriving home around 4pm for his party.
I really don't have much to report on the Rally. I had to finish the inner zone by getting to Andoversford before midnight and that was a bit of a push. The main reason for this was the torturous Somerset roads from Yeovil to Glastonbury to Weston Super Mare to Bath. What would otherwise be good 'A' roads destroyed by mile long 40mph zones bracketing village 30mph zones. On emerging from a 40-30-40 sequence you get a brief tease of the national speed limit just before entering another 40-30-30 sequence. Whilst I accept the reasoning behind the 30mph zones, the reasons for imposing the 40mph zones around the 30mph zone seem quite incomprehensible. Traffic was pretty much ignoring the 40mph limits. Why can't counties like Dorset and Somerset do what more enlightened counties have done and use count down (III-II-I) signs to warn of an impending 30mph zone? Many of the Somerset villages also have 20mph zones. With the constant changes in speed limits it's like someone is trying to catch you out. On top of this the road surface of many of Somerset's roads were, in my opinion, distinctly unsafe at any speed. As someone with over 20 years of motorcycling behind him without getting a speeding ticket (sure to get one soon) I am very cynical about the motives behind all this. Life is about acceptable risk, not zero risk and handing out speeding fines to bemused Grannies! I guess there must be some powerful minority behind this because the Government doesn't seem to be winning the 'hearts and minds' of the general public?
Now where was I? The rain was around at the start and at the end as I made my way around the Derbyshire moors on the way from Ashbourne to Buxton and Congleton. The A54 from Buxton to Congleton is definitely a tricky road in the wet. (Cat and Fiddle country.)
I entered for platinum and did satisfy the criteria for a platinum award on the Rally. However, when I got to Uttoxeter I was demoted to gold because I didn't do the special tests at Hinckley 2 weeks prior to the Rally. (Riders from the Midlands definitely have it easier.) I must admit I was a bit miffed about this as the criteria for a gold award is less than that for a platinum. Used to be that you got a special gold award for what I did and last year I got a platinum for doing the same thing. They keep changing the rules for some reason?
This year was my 6th National Rally and I don't think I'll be doing another for a while. The National Rally is very well run but the problem for me is that after 6 rallies a lot of the control points are starting to get very familiar. Also, living in Poole the roads in France and Spain are starting to look a lot more attractive than our strangled roads. Oh well, never say never again!