Humberside Rallly – March 2006

Well the weekend started off badly with both Rob and Darren getting stuck in traffic, Rob on th M62 and Darren on the M1.

With only 15mins to go before scruteering closed the car was unloaded from the tralier and was raced around to noise testing the off to the scruteering tent.

With the car all passed the boys were off to get signed on and then off to find the hotel and bar.
In the morning after breakfast they set off to the start to make their way to the first stage which was a grueling 2 hour drive.

First stage was a nightmare with no grip and plenty of scary moments, they made it through setting 5th fastest time. The boys admitted that they backed off half way through the stage after Darren lost control and had a very close call with a post.

Stage two was much better with quite a bit more grip the set the third fastest time and were starting to build some confidence after the first stage scare.

Stage 3 was the longest of the day almost 12 miles, With a bit of a delay at the start I had a chance to have a look at the times, we were running 5th in class with only 30 seconds covering the top 5, so we decided to really go for it as we had 2 new tyres put on the front at service.

As we entered the stage the ground was alot better offering more grip, so the Proton was given the thrashing of a life time, with a straight nearly a mile long we hit around 120mph through the woods, quite scary really but you don’t think of it at the time.

With about 7 miles in Darren had the car dancing flicking one way than the other and taking huge speed through the corners. After 9 miles the car took a huge hit in a corner where a huge rut had appeared, with both of us whincing the car seem ok but after a mile turning into a square left and hairpin right we lost drive.

Once out of the car we discovered the drive shaft had broken, the stub of the CV had sheared probably weaken by the big hit a mile earlier.