I'd done a few Autosolos in the Porsche over the last two years and Targas had piqued my interest, but they are run under Road Rally regs which limit cars to a maximum of four cylinders. So no-go for the Porsche. I've long had a hankering for an E36 Compact so this was my excuse. I bought one earlier in the year with this event as the first target.
You can turn up in a totally standard road car if you want - the only requirement is tax, insurance & MOT - but there's a good chance of damaging stuff so unless you're deadly serious about collecting championship points it's best to use something cheap. Most of the cars had buckets & harnesses. Definitely a good idea to help keep you in place. Brakes & suspension can be modified. Engines can be slightly modified, but you can't add forced induction to an engine that didn't have it from the factory. The car is meant to retain its full interior, and you can't add spoilers or wheel arch extensions unless they were factory options. Classes are split by engine capacity (under / over 1400cc) and crew experience (Novice, Expert, Master).
So, on to the actual event. It was at Rushmoor Arena in Aldershot. A nice easy 20 min drive from home for me. I had persuaded JonMad to be my navigator for the day, neither of us had done an event like this before, so it was going to be a lot of learning.
Arrive, take the car to noise test & scrutineering. The scrutineering isn't too officious and is mainly to check that your car looks safe. And that you're not blatantly breaking any rules. They're happy to give you advice on stuff too. Then go and sign on and get your numbers and Road Book. The Road Book contains final instructions, schedule for the day, and crucially, details of the tests.
The style of the tests will vary depending on the venue. Some of the events out in Wales and Scotland could almost pass for stage rallys. For us, it was a big loop of the arena, taking in tarmac, broken tarmac, gravel, dirt and some very slippery mud. Here's the main map:
Test 1 was from the start to a stop point just past gate 29. Stop astride the line, wait two seconds then roll forwards to the timekeeper who fills in your timing card. Test 2 was from just before gate 30 round to the finish. This was done effectively blind. We had the map, but it doesn't tell you anything of the surface, or gradients involved. For example, between 55 & 56 is marked as "!! CARE !!", but you don't know why until you get there ! It was because you had to go up a rather abrupt bank. Tests 1 & 2 were possibly the most stressful, there's a lot of unknowns out there, but you can't dawdle because every run counts towards your total time.
Tests 3 & 4 were the same again, but with more confidence.
Test 5 was the two sections run as one continuous test.
Lunchtime.
Test 6 was the same as Test 5, you're getting confident by now, but the ground is getting quite churned up. It's slightly different each time.
Then we reverse the course !
Tests 7 & 8 were the same as 1 & 2, but in the opposite direction. This is surprisingly tricky. You recognise everything, but it's different now. Lefts are rights and ups are downs.
Tests 9 & 10 were a repeat of 7 & 8 .
And then the finale, those two tests run as one, but the USP of this event - it's in the dark ! The whole event had run ahead of schedule all day so we had to wait about an hour before the final test started, to make sure everyone got to drive proper darkness. You now had to rely heavily on your memory as anything outside the beam of your headlights is completely invisible, and when you're going through the wiggly-wiggly bits that makes life very tricky. One of the supplementary regs on this event was no spotlights, you could only use dip & full beam. Not even fogs.
I forgot to mention timing & penalties. There is a preset Bogey Time corresponding to 30mph average. A consequence of road rally regs. It didn't apply here but at a multi-venue event there will be road sections that also form part of the timing and you mustn't go under the bogey time. Not an issue here. There is also a Max Time which in this case corresponded to an average of 10mph. You get a 10s penalty for hitting a cone (10s per cone if you keep hitting them), and if you completely miss a gate (or retire) you get given the max time. Final results are determined based on your total cumulative time.
We placed 8th from 15 in our class (Novice over 1400cc) and 32nd out of 46 overall. I'm happy with that.
This event was on MOD land so spectators were not allowed out on the course, meaning the official photographer was the only one taking pics. I've not had the hi-res versions through yet but here's the proof sheet. You can make out some of the fun there !
I'll post up the best ones in hi-res later.
The car ran really well all day. I only had one very small off through a muddy section where I clouted the o/s wheels into a kerb, then skidded into the marshall's camping chair. Sorry !
I've broken both of the engine mounts but they're easy enough to change.Summary - it was all awesome fun and I'll be doing it again
