Latest Classic Rally Cars for Sale Newsletter from Peter Scott
I haven’t been competing much since my last missive but had lots of motoring fun. As usual the Goodwood Festival of Speed was on the calendar, partly for work. Our esteemed editor Sarah Bennett-Baggs was there doing some journalism work, Sarah doesn’t ‘do’ rallying so I suggested she might like a run in passenger seat of John Leahy’s ex-Russell Brooks Sunbeam Lotus on the rally stage. It never crossed her mind that the surface would be gravel. Sarah’s chauffeur was to be Irish Forestry Champion Owen Murphy and one who is well practiced in the art of sideways motoring. At the end of the run she had a huge smile and was very clear why rally cars needed side windows. You can read her write up here.
While at Goodwood, I received an email from an Italian translation company asking if I would contact them to record some pace notes to train voice actors for a new video game. I sent them an email with a couple of YouTube links to the 2013 Cork 20 International Rally (which I won with Mark Falvey.) You can take a look at this clip particularly, at taking a corner in 5th at nearly 130 mph, I queried whether listening to a recording would be sufficient? The reply was quick and simple. Change of plan – can I be in Milan on Tuesday morning, as they now wanted me to be the voice of the English co-driver. I asked if they would mind telling me the name of the game. My world took a momentary pause when I heard the answer – SebastienLoebRallyEvo.com
I said I needed to look at the game and the notes so that I could prepare. It will have eight countries and eight special stages each took 30 hours to download. It took me six hours to alter the pace note files to be editable. This was turning into a huge task and two 18 hour days were spent preparing before a Monday departure for London for my son’s graduation before battling the M25 to Stansted. I left UK in a drizzle and got off the plane in Bergamo into a wall of heat. Hotels were impossible as the Milan Expo was on but once again AirBnB came to the rescue with a lovely apartment on the side of the Naviglio (canal) and above a Michelin starred restaurant.
It had become apparent that the Italian pace notes, translated to English needed drastic altering. I ended up with the job of redoing them so that they could be translated into the other languages being used. What I didn’t realise was that I would not be looking at the video when recording. Each phrase or group of phrases has a trigger point on the game and each had to be read separately. I had to go through the notes again to annotate what to be emphasised etc. so another ‘all-nighter’. Now, let me tell you, reading pace notes in a rally car is easy compared to this. The recording booth can’t be air-conditioned as the microphone would pick up the air flow. Five people are staring at you through a sound proof window and listening intently for the tiniest of errors, wrong breathing, speaking too slowly or too quickly etc. We got the job done in three days each of two four hour sessions. The game will have over 70 cars including many historics. It was absolutely exhausting but also immensely satisfying. Some compensation was a stunning lunch and dinner in Milan each day and I just can’t wait for the game to be released in early in 2016. The website is www.sebastienloebrallyevo.com
Next on the list was a test of Owain Lloyd’s Irish Classic Winning FIA GP. 2 Pinto engined Ford Escort with former British Champion and works Avenger driver Robin Eyre-Maunsell. We had a previously had a few teething problems with vibrations and rear springs and it was important to ensure we had got rid of the problems. Robin flew over from Belfast on a July Saturday morning and we went to Preston to collect the car from Century Autosport prior to a trip to the Phil Price Rally School near Knighton in mid-Wales to use the great selection of gravel tracks available there. The plan was to spend an hour on the Saturday evening shaking the car down prior to the real work on the Sunday morning.
As the car had many nuts and bolts undone during our investigations I was instructed that it needed a complete spanner check before too many miles were completed. As this was down to me I wasn’t altogether looking forward to a couple of hours lying under a muddy car. Luck was on my side however, as local top road rally man and Escort preparer Nick Morris works for Phil at the school and offered to take the car to his workshop and do the job. With his huge experience he would do the job far better than I could so everyone was happy. Robin’s championship winning co-driver from the seventies, Neil Wilson, who also won the 1985 RAC Rally with the incredible Henri Toivonen in a Lancia Delta S4, had also come along for fun. Even though Neil hadn’t seen the rally car for a very long time when Robin took him for a run in the car he didn’t take long to diagnose front springs that were too stiff. I was impressed.
We stayed that night in the wonderful B&B outside Llangurig run by the Clochfaen Partnership This is somewhere that I would advise anyone in the area to consider. While a B&B in part, the rest of the house is decorated and kept as it was in 1915 and owner Kevin is more than happy to show visitors round.
Back at Phil’s on Sunday morning and Nick had done a wonderful job. The car felt so taught and ready to go. Engine man Mike Jones from Leominster had now arrived to see just how good his build was – and it is very good! To get 193 bhp from a non-dry sumped Pinto on only 45s and still have lots of mid-range is very special. We started off on tyre testing and tried 165s on the rear (as used on the front) and destroyed them in four miles so 175 were next but Robin favoured the final choice of 185/70×13. All felt good so Robin (76 next birthday) took Mike out for a flat out run. When they came back Mike asked me what speed 7.5k in top was. When I said just over 100mph, he then said that they were turning a blind slight right off the fast downhill straight onto another road without lifting it was pretty clear Robin had lost none of his skill!
