TOB

RADIO

Yes folks this is my report from the Snowman 2008 and I must say that I haven't enjoyed a rally as much in years.
The weather certainly helped but with the stages set up beautifully on fri aft in time for us to drive them,thankyou Highland Car Club you certainly pulled out all the stops for us this year,and also providing us with at least 50 marshals and a timing crew for the F/F and stop on both stages ,and with a radio on virtually every junction it was going to be a breeze wasn't it!!
Actually it was but at 9.15 on SS1 start with everyone in position word came of a 2 mile traffic jam leading up to the start on the public road as spectators came out in their droves.How many we had I have no idea except that you would have to count them in thousands not hundreds and so we sent them into stage at the start as well as the main spectator area at mid stage.
There was no way that you could control that number safely so with words of wisdom quietly asking them to keep safe we ran the stage.
You could hear car horns for most of the morning so obviously the species were walking down the stage but what else can you do but hope.
All the goodie bags quickly disappeared and Tobvtec complete with mast(more of that later) left to check the stage. It was still below freezing and full sunshine ,the cars came all 110 of them and so we left through the stage to our next one. It was still like a motorway as the cars had polished the surface rather than cut into it absolutely brilliant. So onto SS5.
We arrive to come past a boggy field which is Spec car park on a single track road leading up to the start.This could be the start of a great afternoon.Superb start area with plenty of room so we thought. Everyone goes into stage and gets set up but comms are playing up and we can only hear 2 radios out of 12 and control keeps disappearing,so Tob Vtec is asked to raise his erection to see if his performance is improved,but due to lack of……. understanding it was dysfunctional as his end was missing and he couldn,t hear any more than before.So we made it work with crews linking.
If we thought we had too many spectators in the morning then the afternoon was just plain silly.
A course car shut the car park,our arrival crew Ian and Neil set up a bottle and can bank for full and empty bottles of booze,drunks were dissuaded from entering and our nice large start area became a jostling mob.You couldn,t move anyone as the first 200 yards that you could see were lined about 6 deep on both sides and evidently the spec viewing area just out of sight was overrun.
I then turned my attention to the chicanes all 6 of them!!! Constructed of 2 pallets on the left followed by 2 pallets on the right with the width of a car between.How long would they last? Not long but unfortuneately did cause the results to be screwed as all the main protagonists cleaned the stage and even though young Mr Bogie was 15 secs quicker it counted for nothing in the end.The word then came that the main road at the finish called the Struie was totally blocked with spectator cars so we had to hold the stage so that the cars could actually reach the Stop line!!!All down to abandoned spec cars,so police called and eventually with help from Neil it was cleared and we restarted .So we left the battered remains of kindling in the forest and retired to our super little hotel to celebrate a great rally and a superb victory roll from our Mull contestants nice one Eddie and Eddie hope Emily will mend again but they do say they come in 3,s so you will probably clean up now for the rest of the year. Well done also to Ian and Willie 5th oa a great result.
So that's it great weather ,great stages great crew and the spectators did do as they were told so it worked .Thanks to everyone from me,what a difference 3 weeks makes,and now for the explanation of the headline.Tob Vtec has a new toy it MOO's and Barks as well as DA DA,so as Tigger was getting out of his car the Camel barked at him.He looked shocked as it hadn't happened when he peeed up its wheel earlier so he barked back.This was witnessed by most of us who collapsed in hysterics and poor Tigger wouldn't go within 10 feet of the Camel from then on.
This just summed up the mood of a fantastic weekend roll on the Pirelli 19th April lets hope it's as good and the weather is the same.