‘Like being on a roller coaster when you’re about to vomit’
The FIA World Rally Championship is one of the few sporting arenas in which amateurs can compete side-by-side with the elite. The Telegraph’s Tom Cary has got back in the cockpit with Tony Jardine at the Wales Rally GB, nine years after co-driving for him in Sweden. The week brought thrills, spills – and one ill journalist Monday
Early start in Guyancourt, a suburb of Paris near to Le Golf National where I’ve been covering the Ryder Cup. The first of a series of early starts and seriously long days on the road. Rallying is a great sport, but it involves a monumental amount of faff. Tony picks me up at Chester train station in a Toyota Hilux, which is about the size of my house, but perfectly suited to two days of recceing rough gravel tracks in north and mid Wales. We make it to Deeside Service Park – rally headquarters for the week – in time for official sign-on at 7.30pm.
Tuesday
First recce day. Recces are the bane of a rally driver’s life. But, they’re far worse for the co-drivers. At least drivers get to actually drive the car. Co-drivers spend hours scribbling notes, receiving instructions, while the car twists and turns like a runaway train. Tony and I set off from Llandudno, first taking in the Great Orme, the limestone headland which will host the final stage of the rally on Sunday. New road-closure legislation for authorised motorsport events has allowed Wales Rally GB organisers to broaden their horizons this year. They are expecting as many as 20,000 spectators to turn up on Sunday. Tony notes that there will be frogmen waiting in the Irish Sea in case any cars go over the edge, which has happened before. Great. By the time we finish recceing eight stages (two laps of each) it is 8pm and we’re in Llangurig, mid Wales. The stages, by the way, look vicious, particularly Slate Mountain, a special stage built in a slate quarry near to Ffestiniog, which Tony declares to be a “total car-wrecker”.
Wednesday
Second recce day. I do some work on my laptop on the way to the first stage, and Tony ends up driving almost to Aberystwyth – 20 miles in the wrong direction – before I look up. Important lesson: drivers rely on their co-drivers for timing and directions – and you will be to blame if (when) things inevitably go wrong. To be fair to Tony, for whom this is a 24th WRC event on home soil (a record for any British amateur rally driver) he takes the rap for this one. We recce some of Wales Rally GB’S most iconic forest tracks – Myherin, Sweet Lamb Hafren, Dyfi, Gartheiniog – and even bump into Sebastien Ogier, the five-time WRC winner, pulling another competitor’s car out of a ditch. Not a sight you see every day. It’s difficult to imagine Lewis Hamilton pulling a Sunday driver out of a ditch.
Thursday
After a briefing on the use of the new SAS Tracker, which every car must carry (crews can be fined as much as €1,000 (£880) if they fail to use the device correctly), we practise a few wheel changes under the watchful eyes of our service crew; Giles Phillips, Steve Pedlingham (Pedders), Steve Kenton and Stuart Wallace. In full fireproof overalls, undergarments, balaclavas and helmets, we manage to get our time down to three minutes. Head to Special Stage 1 (SS1), at Tir Prince Raceway, a very short curtain-raiser to be run under floodlights. The stage goes well until we reach a hairpin at a set of barriers we described as “sausagelike” in our race notes. This one is overcooked. We lose 20 seconds. But it could be worse. Our service park neighbours, Scottish duo John Morrison and Peter Carstairs, who are also driving a Mitsubishi Evo 9 GT prepared by Giles and his team, are unable to start at all due to electrical gremlins. They will be allowed to repair the car and start tomorrow, but after what appeared to be a benign 1.7km opener, they already find themselves nearly 14 minutes behind. Rough luck.
Friday
If I thought I was green as a co-driver at the start of the day, it’s nothing to how I feel by the end. I miss breakfast as my hotel restaurant isn’t open at 6am, and I’m playing catch-up from there. I first start to feel queasy in Brenig (SS3), a nasty long (nearly 30km) stage on a combination of dirt and tarmac (over which the car breaks and accelerates much more violently). By the time we reach Penmachno, my guts are in bits. I try to read the notes, but it’s like being asked to go on a roller coaster when you’re already feeling like you’re going to vomit. I last about 15km before throwing up in a bag.
Saturday
Fortunately, Tony bailed me out on Friday, driving “blind” in between my bouts of chundering and we actually ended the day 37th overall (out of a field of 56) and leading the National Four class. And crucially, I learn from my mistakes of the day before. Armed with some motion sickness tablets recommended to me by one of my co-driving rivals, Welshman Dai Roberts, we set off for mid-wales at 5.45am There is even time to stop for a bacon buttie and a coffee at a café in Llangurig, where we bump into Elfyn Evans and his co-driver Dan Barritt, a man who very kindly gave up a day out of his busy schedule last month to help reacquaint me with pace notes and time cards. They’re looking a bit glum after their brilliant start to Friday (second overall after the first few stages) was derailed when their Ford Fiesta picked up a misfire on a road section. It has been a difficult season for the pair, who won this event last year, when Evans became the first Welshman to win a round of the WRC. Now he’s sweating on a new contract. Cruel. Tony and I have a brilliant day, though, finding a real groove with our pace-note calling. We put in some excellent times on Dyfi 2 and Gartheiniog 2 in particular, regularly passing cars which have crashed into ditches or worse. Unfortunately, our overall standing is affected by two front right punctures. We manage to limp to the end of Dyfi 1 before changing the first. But the second, on our second loop around Sweet Lamb Hafren, necessitates an in-stage switch. We pull over to a safe place on the roadside and try to remain calm. We get it done and we’re on our way, but we finish the stage around five minutes slower than we did first time around in the morning. We still end the day 36th overall and leading our class. Although now (impressively), our neighbours John and Peter are the next car on the road. Our lead over them is nearly four minutes. But it’s clear we cannot afford any slip-ups or bad luck on the final day.
Sunday
A day of massive highs and lows. We fight all day to stave off John and Peter, getting through some treacherous, slippery stages in good shape. And we enjoy a morning lap of the Great Orme finish stage, flying over the finish ramp where my wife and children – who are driving up for the day – will later be sitting. But when we reach the Great Orme for the second time, for what should be the ceremonial final stage, we are told there is a delay. It seems there was an accident near the finish involving a stunt rider performing for the crowds there. After an hour or so we are told the stage has been cancelled for all but the top WRC guys, who will drive a shortened course. It’s a bittersweet end. We have won our class, completed Wales Rally GB. It is a huge achievement. But a young man has been airlifted to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool with injuries described as lifethreatening. A desperately sad way for a great week to end. I feel for the organisers and thank my lucky stars – and Tony – that we came through our adventure unscathed.
I first start to feel queasy in Brenig, a nasty long stage