Well, this weekend I was mostly freezing my nuts off in the Welsh forests for Rally RB.
Part of my course is Motorsport Safety Management, which covers marshalling and incident management and things, so I have to marshal a few events in order to become qualified. I managed to get my name down for this one so spent Friday and Saturday as marshal for the final WRC event of the year.
A group of us headed down to our campsite near Rhyader in mid Wales on Thursday, and set up, with our first stage starting at Hafron on Friday morning. We found it and signed on the night before (after over 2 hours looking!) and then headed back and got very little sleep before getting up at 4am(!) to be back on stage for 6. After getting stuck a lot, we all got there and got the gas stove on and had some food, and then got ready for the spectators (some of whom had been there all night). The stage was supposed to be run twice, once in the morning and once in the afternoon, but due to poor weather, it had been shortened from the planned 13km down to just under 4km. It was lethal though, black ice everywhere. So, with all the spectators gathering and much moving them around as they do insist on standing in stupid places, the safety cars starting coming through, and then they decided not to run the morning stage at all for safety reasons, which meant said speccies got rather pissed off, having spent rather a lot of money to be there. The cars came through the stage at a slow pace to get to stage 2, and we waited until 2pm ready for the next attempt. Which they then cancelled as well
With that, all the spectators left pretty much and we took all the barriers and things down and waited to see the cars come through again. I took a few snaps this time, as we're not really allowed to take any whilst on duty, but with no one about we did, and being a marshal means you can stand pretty much where you like and get much closer than the general public do.
Few snaps...
Our junction:
The spectator to marshal ratio in the afternoon lol
Few of the WRC cars coming through at about a quarter pace
With all the excitement (or lack of) done, we headed into town to get a fuel stop before heading back to the campsite.
We came across no end of cars moving between stages and when we stopped for fuel, found this on the forecourt
And a moment later, this turned up:
For those that remember him, this was actually being driven by Tony Jardine, who used to do the F1 commentary on TV. Was a really nice chap, had a bit of a chat with him before he rushed off to the next stage. I'm not a fan of this shape Fiesta, but think they look awesome like this, and he was really giving it some when I saw him on stage Saturday.
We then headed back to our campsite, where I had a minor mishap with my mechanics gloves after my friend Dee decided that the best place to dry them was putting them near his gas cooker. Which was fine, until they fell on it...
After the disappointment of day 1, we were all hoping day 2 would bring brighter things, with many talking of giving up and going home. We persisted though, as the stage we were on for Saturday, Crychan, is rarely cancelled. Our junction was much better run, and although not as good a corner, we were right in the thick of it. I spent the morning stood right on the outside of a sharp left bend getting peppered by stones and slate as the cars went through. They were literally 3 feet away from us at full competitive speeds.
Sadly I didn't get any pictures of the morning session, but I did take a few later. Also, after another 4am start to the day, and a heavy night before for some, this was a common sight:
And, just so you know that your safety is in the hands of responsible, professional individuals:
I took a couple of photo's later on, when I'd moved to just before the corner I was at it in the morning. The cars were getting some good speed down here and it looked spectacular when it started getting dark, seeing glowing brakes, massive flames and spotlights blazing. The sound of these things at full chat is simply amazing, be they full on WRC cars, or the Group N and S1600 cars. Sadly my phone simply couldn't keep up to take photo's
Helicopter, there were 5 of these landed there at one point!
Couple of not so great car pics:
Really need a proper camera for that sort of thing.
After a great Saturday we headed back to camp with the intention of a few drinks, but we were all so tired from being up so long (something in the region of 4am til 10pm outside in freezing temps every day), we made ourselves a big fire and enjoyed a calm night without rain. Sky was clear with little light polution there were plenty of stars so it was quite pleasant.
Sunday I actually got to see our campsite in daylight for pretty much the first time, and we had a lay in til about 8 which was nice. Sadly, it was simply freezing, with temperatures dropping to -7 degrees overnight, meaning it was certainly a bit nippy! Took a few pics of the campsite, as it was quite a nice location, even though the facilities were crap.
Our camping area at around 8am:
Our palace:
The sun starting to come into the valley a little:
Those responsible marshals again:
The valley with a bit of sun on it at last:
Oh, and one last one. This is the result of being hit in the arm by some of the rock Sebastian Loeb was kicking up on Chrychen!!!! I'm glad I decided against standing where this chap was!
And that, is that
