Navigator Andy lives his life in fast lane
Serious accident no deterrent as Hayes continues continues to live his life in the fast lane
THE FAST-PACED world of rallying is not for the faint-hearted, but for Wexford man Andy Hayes, it has become a way of life.
Hayes was in the navigator’s seat beside Josh Moffett in a Ford Fiesta as the pair stormed to success in the Triton Showers National Rally Championship last year.
The Clonard native may have reached the upper echelons of the amateur game after over a decade serving as a co-driver, but he got on the long and winding road of motor sport by chance, when an old schoolmate, Eoin Neville, got in touch.
‘Eoin started doing a bit of rally driving and he just rang me out of the blue one day back in 2008 and asked me would I be interested in navigating for him.
‘I said I’d give it a shot, it was as simple as that. We said we’d do it for a bit of craic. He’s still driving to this day and I’m still navigating,’ he said.
Hayes did dabble in a touch of driving himself for a while, but an accident, alongside his brother John, soon put paid to any chance of him continuing on that route.
‘In 2012 I decided I’d take a chance behind the wheel myself, so I bought a little Citreon Saxo. I got the brother to navigate for me. We did a few rallies and upgraded the car and got a Honda Civic.
‘We were doing the Wexford Rally in 2014 and we were up in Ballindaggin. I must have had a bit of a brain freeze, I came around a corner that I should have been braking down to first gear for a chicane but I came around in sixth gear, saw the chicane at the last second, tried to avoid it and I hit a concrete pier.
‘I put myself into a wheelchair for six weeks and put my brother into Wexford General for a week. That was more or less the end of the driving,’ he laughed.
‘It took four months to get back in the seat, that was in September and I wasn’t back walking until January. As soon as I got off the crutches I was back navigating, actually I was still on crutches when I went back if the truth be told.
‘I never went driving much again, I did a couple of rallies since but that pretty much finished it,’ he said.
For those of a less ballsy nature, that incident could have been the catalyst to limp away from the sport, but rallying aficionados are made of stern stuff and getting back on the horse, so to speak, wasn’t a problem.
‘It frightened me enough not to get in a car with me driving, but if there’s a decent driver there’s no issue there. I got nervous with my own driving.
‘Funnily enough he [John] said at the time he’d never get in a rally car again, but about three years ago he decided that he’d go driving. He ended up buying a car and I started navigating for him. He’s driving away still and I navigate for him the odd time,’ he said.
Hayes has experienced FIA World Rally Championship driver Craig Breen to thank for opening doors for him, and teaming up with the Waterford man six years ago really helped him to get on the right course.
‘In 2014, around the time of the accident, I had just started doing a bit of work with Craig Breen. I had got in touch with him a few months before that, and I started helping him out with European Championship and World Championship events.
‘I wasn’t navigating for him, what I was doing was like a safety car type thing. Craig would be competing in the rally and we’d go about two hours ahead of him and check the road conditions for him.
‘That had started just around the time of the accident so, when I got back on my feet again, the first thing I went to do was navigate for Craig for a rally. I did that for three or four years, on and off, and Craig put me in touch with a good few different guys.
‘I did a good few rounds of the World and European Championships with Craig, helping out and doing that safety crew type thing, and at home I started navigating for Josh Moffett,’ he said.
His partnership with Moffett began two years ago and it has proved to be an auspicious meeting of minds as they won the Irish Tarmac Rally Championship in 2018, and last year topped the charts in the Irish National Rally Championship.
‘Craig kind of sorted it all out for me. He had the contacts so he put me in touch with Josh. Last year we won six of the seven rounds and came second in the other one, which was actually his home rally in Monaghan, the one he really wanted to win all year,’ he said.
Hayes is regularly on co-driving duty on both sides of the Atlantic as Breen also paved the way for him to use his navigating skills in America.
‘Craig put me in touch with a couple of guys over in the U.S. and it all kicked off really from there. I did the second half of the U.S. Rally Championship with an Irish guy, Barry McKenna. No wins over there, I think we got a couple of seconds and a third so that was a bit of craic too,’ he said.
There has to be a huge element of trust between a rally driver and their navigator, as if either makes a mistake it could prove extremely costly, and Hayes agrees that they need to be on the same wavelength.
‘I proved that back in 2014 when I put the brother in hospital. There is obviously a massive level of trust. I’ve been lucky enough in the last few years.
‘I did a few rallies with Craig Breen and he’s a professional, so you’d trust him to the end of the earth. It’s what he does all day, every day.
‘But even the likes of Josh Moffett or Barry over in the U.S., they’re amateurs technically but in terms of talent they’re not far away from the top level.
‘You trust that they’re not going to do anything stupid. You put that out of your mind and you Just get on with II,' he said. Juggling rallying with work life can be difficult and Hayes, who was an account-ant for KPMG in Dublin for a number of years and is now employed by Keitech in Waterford, says its a tough balancing act.
'I don't think I've taken a proper holiday in a few yeears, every holiday I take Is a rally somewhere. The U.S. stuff for instance is hard to fit In.
'I would leave work on Wednesday night, drive to Dublin. go straight to the airport. fly out, do the rally, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and then fly home Sunday, land at 5 a.m. on Monday, and go straight back to work again,' he said.
However, its clear that he has a real passion for the sport. and despite the all-consuming nature of it, the thrills and spills keep him coming back for more.
'I'm an accountant by trade so Its a fair difference from the day Job. It's great to get away. I'm lucky with what I'm doing at the minute, doing stuff in Europe and the U.S., it's a great way to get away and see places and parts of the world that you would never be In.
'Usually you end up in remote parts of the countries. For the Monte Carlo rally you're up in the French Alps. then you go over to Finland and you're out In the forests, you go over to the U.S. and you're in Virginia, Michigan and all these kind of states. away from civilisation almost. 'It's nice to get around and see places that you probably would never be other-wise.' he said.
As a navigator It's important to prepare for a race in the best possible manner and be aware of the challenges that lie ahead, but for Hayes It's as much about getting yourself into the correct mindset as anything else.
'Before a race, what you're looking at really is familiarising yourself with the whole event, especially when you go over to the U.S. You're going to a town In the U.S. In a state which you were probably never In before. trying to figure out all the different locations and the routes you're going to take when you're writing your notes.
'You're trying to work out the logistical side of things so that when you get there on the day and get Into the car and take off, you know exactly where you're going. The prep trying to figure out all the different locations and the routes you're going to take when you're writing your notes. 'You're trying to work out the logistical side of things so that when you get there on the day and get Into the car and take off, you know exactly where you're going.
The prep is all really about knowing as
much as you possibly can the morning when you arrive, and that nothing is a surprise to you. In terms of anything else outside of that, we can’t really practise what we do.
‘You can do a small bit of testing with the rally cars but in terms of the actual competition side of things, it happens on the day really.
‘You try to make sure your mind is as clear as possible. The last thing you need when you’re under pressure in a car is to be thinking about something else.
‘Navigating is not exactly physically demanding but you have to keep your concentration levels up. Some of the days could be long enough, you could be 14 or 16 hours in and out of the car from start to finish, so to keep the concentration up you do have to have some level of fitness at least.
‘The other side of it as well, the drivers and owners are spending massive money on making sure they have the lightest weight car they can get. If you want to buy a lightweight seat that’s two kilos lighter than a normal seat, it’s costing €5,000, so if you decide to have a few extra pies and you’re five kilos overweight, it negates the whole thing.
‘A lot of these cars are ex-World Championship cars so the seats are all designed for lads who are about eleven stone weight, so you have trouble even fitting into the seat,’ he said.
Technological advances have seen rallying evolve greatly since Hayes took his first tentative steps into the sport, some for the good of the game and others to the detriment of it.
‘Things have moved on since I started in 2008. The first rally we did was in a little Peugeot 106, basically a road car with a roll cage in it, so for me it’s moved on massively in terms of what we’re competing in these days. We’re in ex-World Championship cars now.
‘The sport itself has changed massively because of the cost, unfortunately. Insurance issues have had a massive impact on Irish rallying in particular.
‘Back when I started there would have been a lot of Wexford amateur crews around. It was always an expensive sport, but it was a bit more manageable back then. These days the cost of the insurance and entry fees and everything else associated with it has gone so high that it has priced an awful lot of guys at the club man level out, which is disappointing.
‘If we look back to where we were in 2008, there’s no way we’d be able to start in the same way this year if we were starting from scratch. An entry fee today is roughly around twice what it was back in 2008. It makes it harder for people to get into it,’ he said.
Like all sports, action has been thin on the ground this year, with Hayes having competed in just one race in the National Rally Championship, with Josh Moffett, and one round in the U.S. Championship, with Ryan Booth, before the shutdown.
That could well be his lot until 2021 after Motorsport Ireland announced the cancellation of its competitions last week, while travel restrictions are likely to prevent him from competing in America until next year.