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Mark Higgins wrote:Rally Trinidad
Posted by MH Mon, March 29, 2010 13:53:59
Well, it's definitely been from one extreme to another in terms of temperatures for me. Last time out rallying, in China, it was minus 35 - and now I have just finished a rally in Trinidad in temperatures as high as 42 degrees in the sun!
Rally Trinidad was going to be a bit a fun, but once myself and Nicky Grist saw the stages, we realised it was going to be a proper rally! We arrived on Wednesday evening, and on the Thursday had a two hour tuturial on driving and co-driving for many of the crews in the event. Once this was done we moved on to the recce. The stages for this gravel event had everything! It had parts of New Zealand, Portugal, and Australia of old all mixed together.
The car we were driving was a Group N Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 9 and our main competition came from three World Rally Cars including a 2007 Ford Focus and an Subaru Impreza S12B so it was always going to be difficult.
That said, we were second overall in the first stage, but unfortunately we had a problem with our braking and kept locking up the rear. There wasn't a lot we could do apart from slide a lot. It was an easy way to drive, but definitely not a fast way.
During the day the mechanics got to work on the car after we heard a gearbox noise which meant they had to change the box and also the front and centre diff. They were a great bunch, and did all of that in good time without us getting any penalties for lateness.
Once we got going again, the car felt much better and the times also came better because there must have been a problem with the centre diff. We were now on the pace of the leading WRC of John Powell.
Despite further gearbox mount problems, we managed to hold on to second place until the end, winning Group N. The event actually finished with a separate timed run around a packed town, but unfortunately our gearbox mount did not allow us to compete in the Mitsubishi as it was very close to failure.
But John Powell, who originally invited us to the event, asked if I would drive his S12B instead! Of course I said yes and managed to set the fastest time. Apparently on the Trinidad forums people from the event were posting as soon as I came up to the start line in the WRC, so it was nice to create that kind of buzz at the event. It was also fantastic to be back in a WRC again, and to finish what had been an extremely hot event on such a high.
I would like to thank our sponsors Shell for their support, the club of Trinidad and also John Powell, for what was a great event.
I'm now back in the airport again, just about to head to Sweden for some driver training. The temperature there is about minus 20 at the moment, so my body is going to wonder what on earth I'm doing going from one extreme to the other so much!
Catch up soon
Mark
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