Rally RS Achene

RALLY RS ACHENE 2022

FINALLY, ALL THE CARDS ARE IN THE

RIGHT ORDER and we’re ready to seriously race again with our Sunbeam Lotus.

As our distant friends Mr Thompson and Mr Cook, in the green and yellow Lotus, have already mentioned. “Corona took the wind out of our sails and left us without the excitement of racing.”

So after about two to three years, everything required came into alignment for a trip to Wallonia. Where they have for many years held a rally sprint. A nine kilometre special stage on tarmac and gravel . It’s four identical laps, with a rather long re-group in between. So it gave us the chance to repair if needed. We realised, we haven’t driven this event for the last four years.....it showed..... and that was the best part!

The car had been sitting for way too long, without the mandatory six monthly MOT; which it must have to be permitted on the road during the event and the yearly scrutineering by the sport’s governing body. It is all so far in the past, that even the car logbook was “a bit lost”. So we were stumbling in the dark about what paperwork we had to checked !!! ??? Not good I know, but unfortunately true.

Our service trailer was also without its MOT

and possibly many tools and parts; that we’d mistakenly left at home in the garage from other home car repair jobs. Fire extinguishers had to be serviced and/or replaced without a doubt. Dates on the belts, seats and fuel tank luckily were not expired. You would be surprised how much a top notch rally car costs just standing still for a few years. The garden mower had made good use of the old fuel though! Tyres are another item that age; but they’re far too expensive to just throw away. Let’s just say they might last a little longer than they do usually and that’s just the mechanical side of the adventure.

The human side was also far from perfect. My son, who would be driving the Lotus; had been fed up with things as they were and still are in Belgium and left with his family to live in Hong Kong some time ago. Covid, what else, threw a lot of additional trouble in the planned visits and taught us how to use Zoom etc, just so we could see our grandchildren growingup. Not funny at all. Secondly, my son had not even sat in a car during his time in Hong Kong, let alone got the feel of driving a car. And if it couldn’t get any worse. Two of our five hard core service crew, had obligations for the chosen weekend. Oh dear!

Luckily, Elien had the courage to join us for only the third time as co-driver. On the two previous occasions, she had helped us out we went home without completing a single kilometre of the special stage. Not the best omen, but we had no choice. During the week of the rally sprint we found out that the water pump of the Lotus was leaking. The radiator of the Accord pulling the trailer was holed and the timing chain of the H-1 van pulling the service trailer, surprised me with a loud rattle, two days before day zero. The Lotus water pump was given a “make or break ” remedy by Phil Davison. The radiator in the Honda changed for a new one at the dealers and the fantastic Honda engine cleared as unharmed. And the H-1 has a recovery insurance, so “drop dead” if you need to.

The stage had a very long straight. So at the very last minute we decided to swap out the 4.1 for the 3.9. However, the gripper LSD in the 3.9 was dodgy; so let’s hope the straight is not too long. Luckily a well positioned tractor tire on the straight saved the day. When walking to the service park, we soon noticed a few cars out of the ordinary. A perfectly prepared 205 with a old Belgian ace at the wheel.A Mk2 Escort with a very healthy Pinto and next to it; another Mk2 but with a prime BDG under the bonnet, wearing the marks of a well known UK tuning company ending in “…cox”. Next to that, a clearly not so legal and/or original old-timer BMW M3 with a sequential gearbox.

Our first pass was all about checking that our car was doing what it should do and all four corners where still on the car when it returned to the regroup-service area. The downhill corkscrews were, as Yves told us, not the favourite place to blindly dive into, as some would say they did. Resulting in a +9min time and a serious 29 second delay for the fastest of the old-timers; which was the 205, closely followed by the BDG and

the Pinto. The questionable BMW was put in another class.

The second pass cost us a rim and tyre, so no decent time and much time lost. Some cars made faster times but most of them went slower. The well worn roads showed a bit more dirt and times went up. Yves mentioned the car, before the flat tyre, was nervous in the front on the tarmac parts especially. The educated eye estimated that we had about +15min of toe out and all the training we’d done at home, meant that we corrected that in a blink to nicely straight and the water-pump was fine thanks to Mr Philip

Our third pass was way better and confidence went sky high.The gap to the top 3 became smaller. So, as planned; we changed the rear anti-roll bar for an experimental test part we’d made at home, for the fourth and last attempt.

Suddenly, we couldn’t believe our eyes! We’d achieved the fastest time of the oldtimers, beating the Peugeot’s best time of the day, by almost two seconds and the BDG by 0.17 seconds !!! The slightly elderly driver of the BDG walked in to our service tent, sweating like a pig and applauding; saying “congratulations, I fought like hell for the every last centimetre of track and this is the first time in years I’ve been beaten in my own back garden.” The experimental part is still somewhere in his garden.

Several beers and chips with mayonnaise later, we drove home with the best feeling ever. That’s exactly what we do it for.

Hope this can help and thanks fort he correction.

PATRICK