Column: Tom Cave
Iwas asked to write a few words for MN, really not knowing what to write about. Let’s be honest no-one wants to hear or read about Covid19 or lockdown all day, every day, because it’s a bit like Brexit... it will not bloody go away! So I thought, in light of last week’s unfortunate news, I’d give you an insight into an event that was plagued with untimely complications but then resulted in silverware: Rally GB 2019.
At the time, I was still licking my wounds from finishing second in the British Rally Championship, after a year-long battle with Matt Edwards. I knew Rally GB would be pivotal for moving into 2020 with support from partners and continuing my relationship with Hyundai Motorsport Customer Racing. Welcoming aboard new and vastly experienced co-driver Dale Furniss, I was eager to work to together and show what we could do! The R5 category was fiercely competitive. We had Petter Solberg return in the works supported VW Polo R5 with Oliver Solberg in an identical car; Kalle Rovanpera in the works Skoda Fabia R5, Mads Ostberg, Hayden Paddon, Jan
Kopecky and also Matt [Edwards] joining us in the Phillip Case Rally Sport team.
We opened the show around Oulton Park: Matt was first car on the road, and I was second. Oh boy, it was slippery. The deep watersplash caused problems for my alternator belt and I lost power steering so for a few hundred metres it was like driving a sit-on lawn mower with two flat front tyres with the car steamed up like a sauna. It was a terrible start, dropping 15.1 seconds to Petter who was fastest. That gap would soon become gravely important.
The opening stage on Friday [day two] was also problematic. This time a small wire on the steering wheel loom was intermittently working its way loose. It was on a flexy piece of cord behind the wheel, which controlled my boost, anti-lag settings and wipers. I was stuck in the lowest setting of boost with no anti-lag for the next three stages, losing between
15-20 seconds a stage. We made it to Dolgellau and stopped on the roadside to carry out repairs in the pouring rain.
Realistically we had 20 minutes of road section time to strip down and rewire the steering loom. Without any cable strippers, Dale was making use of his front dentures.
I had the loom diagram drawn up by our engineer on a piece of scrap paper in the back of the service lorry back at Deeside, which was sent to me after running down the road to find 4G to call. We were at side of the road for that long the sweeper car turned up! With them in toe and an abundance of spectators all wanting to get involved, they politely watched our sophisticated bodge... I mean repair! We made it to the arrival control of Dyfnant with seconds to spare before incurring penalty lateness. We pulled off a roadside repair job worthy of an A*!
But lying mid 20s overall, I had to make sure we started going up the overall standings and not backwards. Starting day three, we were inside the top 15 and fifth R5 overall. We were behind Petter and Phil on the road, which was fun on the road sections; plenty of stories and questions asked. Dyfi, Hafren and Sweet Lamb and then Myherin awaited. These were stages I call home and boy, did we come out fighting.
Taking five seconds out of Petter through Dyfi, he soon became wary of our times. He was coming straight to my door, asking “well what time you do…?” I got a small glimpse of the world champion and how mightily competitive he still was. And you can see why he was nicknamed Mr Hollywood. Everywhere we were, albeit the arse end of nowhere, his army of fans appeared out the trees. He always embraced it and had time for everyone who came over for a photo or autograph.
On Sunday Great Orme had been cancelled, only leaving us with three stages and the gap was close between us and Pierre-louis Loubet. I was well up for the fight for podium honours in WRC 2. We kept Loubet behind and with a huge grin on our faces we crossed the line in 11th overall, first privateer, first Welsh crew and third R5 car; behind 2003 world champion Petter and future world champion Kalle Rovenpera.
I was thrilled for the PCRS team; our teamwork had shone through. A firm handshake from Andrea Adamo confirmed we did a did good job. But now to the white elephant in the room. Remember that 15.1s deficit on stage one? We finished 14.7s behind Petter in the end…
“I got an insight into how competitive Petter Solberg still is”