The preparations:
After last year’s cancellation of the event, due to the Covid pandemic, we decided that 2021 would go on regardless! But that meant we had to find a Covid proof format for our night time navigational rally. And that’s what we did. Though it wasn’t up to our normal standards. So no nice accommodation for the reception, no coffee and vlaai and no beers in one of the cellar bars at Rolduc afterwards. Instead the start and finish was on the rather bleak parking area of Roda JC football club's stadium in Kerkrade (NL).
But before that some work had to be done, to start with translating the road book into a GPS file for the satnav. Didn’t go as planned but on the Thursday evening I was finally able to upload the file to my GPS device. Frankly the built in “intelligence” of these systems is way beyond me!
Next on the to do list was a check over off the car of choice. Which was ‘t Kreng of course! I hadn’t been able to spent much time on her, so I took a day off from work last Friday.
And the day was mainly spent on getting her out of the shed and on to the drive and a basic check of all systems. Nothing really wrong, only the engine oil and coolant levels needed topping up a little. But that was more for peace of mind than a real necessity! And I found some proof of the cars hard use over the years (almost 25!).
Final job was fitting a removable mounting point for the satnav. For this I used an old and lightly damaged facia top grill panel, to which I glued a disc for the mount’s suction cup. Suctions cups were also used to secure the rally plate!
The final route check:
As ever our task, on the day of the event, was to do a final check of the route. This is mainly to check for any last minute road works or diversions. But also to have the road book checked by someone who doesn’t know the route. This task was for my regular navigator. Sadly when we set of early on the Saturday morning it was raining heavily. And this highlighted one of the mayor design flaws of the car, the demister. It took a long time before all the windows were clear. Maybe the car was punishing me for the fact that she had to spent the night outside in the rain for the first time in many years! But by the time we arrived at the start location all windows were clean. But it was still raining. And the rain would stay with us on and off for most of the day.
As I didn’t fancy getting wet while taking pictures, I didn’t take many! And I concentrated on the driving instead. And rightly so, as in places the driving conditions were very treacherous indeed. Nicely illustrated at the cross roads near the Val Dieu abbey. It was covered in fallen leaves, resulting in no grip at all for the front wheels. Only remedy to prevent the nose from sliding wide was to use the throttle to get the back out, and the nose in the correct direction. Good fun indeed! And there was lots of mud on the roads, caused by harvesting farmers. Added bonus of the mud was that the car got a nice new streamlined coating.
But apart from the challenging conditions, there were no more problems or diversions. So well within the time schedule we were back at the start, with an average speed of a little over 50 km/h over the almost 160 kilometre route. And a rather muddy car.
The event:
Despite the difficult pre event conditions due to Covid, we were pleased to get 25 cars at the start. A small selection.
And with the last car disappearing into the rainy darkness, we headed to a local restaurant to while away the time over some very nice food, while the teams were negotiating a wide variety of different types of roads. Luckily for them the rain stopped pretty soon after the start.
After finishing the food we went back to the parking lot from the Roda JC stadium, to welcome the teams at the finish.
There’s always some doubts about the route, but we needn’t have worried. The first team arrived nicely on “schedule”. And close to midnight all teams were accounted for.
The aftermath:
Most important job for the day after, was a trip to the local car wash of course. But not before I enjoyed the car during a very fine Sunday morning. With lovely weather and autumn colours. And more slippery leaves ...
After which the car was treated to a shower at the local car wash, before being tucked away in the shed.
There was a slight problem though. During the day’s driving I found out that the glove box lid couldn’t be opened anymore. But back in the shed I managed to open it with a slim screw driver from the car’s tool roll and the smart phones led light. With the lid open the cause for the failure became immediately clear.
Clearly visible is that the back of the lock is torn open. This has probably caused the lock innards to come apart, resulting in the lock not functioning anymore. Luckily I have a few spare glove box lids in the shed so switching the lock mechanism was only a few minutes work. Only down side is that the current boot and glove box key won’t fit anymore.
As for the reason of the locks failure. This is probably caused by the trip meter hanging on the lid in combination with many badly surfaced roads over the past 20+ years. I might go looking for a method to take some strain from the lock mechanism over the winter.
I have to admit that from a driving point of view it was a good weekend, clocking op circa 670 kilometres. Though I will quickly forget the bill for the 102 RON fuel!
And to finish this post a picture of the imprint left behind by a small leaf that managed to stick to the rear bumper long enough for it to leave a visible imprint in the built up dirt 😊
