Part 12 - Gaining Ground, and the Jag's Not Bad Either!

October 2020 and it was time for our second HERO event in the Jaguar XJS, the Hero Challenge 3.  The car had been sitting on the drive untouched after the last event.  I had meant to look at the HVAC system, but it was now two days before the rally and too late to be taking out the dashboard.  

I remembered that there had been a strong smell of petrol in the cabin after the HERO Challenge 2, but a cursory check underneath the car and in the boot found no evidence of leaks.  Whilst I was there I attended to the many grease nipples in the rear suspension and driveshafts and a quick wipe down of the oily bits underneath the engine.

Trying to go in the right direction

It appears that the oily bits are oily due to a weeping camshaft cover - but this does need further investigation just in case it is not that simple (I don't want to tempt fate here).  The engine needed a small oil top up, as did the cooling system and power assisted steering reservoir - as should be expected on a car of this vintage, but that seemed all that was necessary.  I put the petrol smells down to a fault in the fuel vapour canister in the rear flying buttress, and left it at that.

A post-event analysis of the last rally had allowed us to better understand why we racked up a fair few penalties:  It's all about the timing!  Consequently, a new rally clock was ordered and installed where we could both see it.  The useless central air vent was the ideal spot.  The flaking wood surround was removed, revealing the original black vinyl on the dashboard (how the car was finished when first launched - the wood was added some years later to make the ambiance more "Jaguar" when the HE version came along.).  The big Jaguar was ready.

Graham, my navigator and I set off for the start at the Holiday Inn, Taunton, a 190 miles away, a relatively short distance for a GT like the XJS. On arrival, we were soon through scrutineering, the trip meter was checked against the organiser's measured distance, we signed on and received the event's road book.

Mini Clubman, Sprite & an immaculate Big Healey

1970 911

A Well Travelled Volvo

Knowing more this time than last, for the next two hours, we poured over the detail, trying to second guess the little tricks the route setters had left for us.  Time was running away and if we were going to get something to eat by the 10pm Covid curfew, we needed to get our skates on.  A local indian restaurant came to our rescue, and although we were the only diners, a great meal and a few Cobras were enjoyed before chucking out time.

Saturday arrived dry and bright.  As last time, the oldest cars led the field away from the start, and with the XJS being one of the youngest, we started at No. 100.  It was straight into the first regularity section and we immediately felt much more at ease and on track than the previous event.  Our goal for the Hero Challenge 3 was to finish in the top third.

1934 Lagonda M45

It took the first two regularity sections and two special tests to find a communication methodology in the cockpit that worked between navigator and driver, but by test 3, things were going better.  More regularity sections followed before lunch, using wonderful lanes in the Blackdown Hills.  

After lunch one of the highlights of the event were two special stages up Porlock Hill, a private road closed to traffic.  Graham was convinced we could do well on this stage:  A steep uphill course with a stop box half way up would suit the XJS with its reserves of torque and automatic gearbox.  Unlike many of the competitors, I had no experience of either Porlock Hill or a hill-climb type stage.

We set off at a cracking pace under the overhanging trees with the road still damp after the overnight rain.  Graham called the bends as best he could from the not-to-scale diagram of the course, but soon realised it was better just to look out for the cones and tell me which side to pass.  We steamed into an uphill right hand hairpin bend, with a white picket fence on the inside giving minimal protection from the deep gully running beneath the road.  Beyond the turn the the tarmac was lined by a high rocky bank on the inside and a precipitous drop with full grown trees lining the edge on the outside.

You can now take your pick from the encyclopedia of racing driver's excuses: Cold tyres, old tyres, hard tyres or leaves on the track;  whatever you like to choose, the result was the rear end of a very long Jaguar sliding rapidly towards the rocky wall.  I turned into the skid, the rear end gripped and swung the other way, towards the large trees and the scary drop, then back again.  This pendulum motion continued for what seemed like a very long time.  Graham looked down and braced himself for the crunch.  Meanwhile, I was busy turning the steering wheel from lock to lock, telling myself to keep my feet off the pedals and just keep turning that wheel.

Eventually I gathered the car together and we arrived at the stop box.  The episode must a have looked spectacular as we got a double thumbs up from the marshal!  Perhaps it appeared as though I knew what I was doing...but it didn't feel that way at the time.  Unfortunately I also clipped a cone on the way up adding a 10 second penalty to our time.

Despite the heart-in-mouth tank-slapper exiting the greasy hairpin, the accelerative power of the Jaguar maintained our class position on this first Porlock Hill test; however, our nerves were still rather frayed when we started the second stage, which was completed at a more stately rate of progress.

It was soon time for the afternoon coffee break.  After the excitement of Porlock Hill, we decided to stop for tea and cake. (HERO events are very civilised).  By the time we got going, we were the last car running.  Unknown to us at the time, we had incurred a 30 second penalty for starting more than 10 minutes after our due time...a mistake we will not be making again, cake or no cake.

The second ford of the day

Just avoiding a cone!

The afternoon was spent crisscrossing Exmoor with wonderful views over the Bristol Channel and all the way to Wales.

By the final three tests, everyone had upped their game and happily with a much better performance by your driver, we maintained our position just outside the top 20.  We were one second ahead of an old rival from road rallying in the 1980s in a fully prepared Peugeot 205.  We knew he was much faster on the tests (indeed, he was fastest overall on every test!), but could we maintain that lead on the final regularity?

The last section had a sting in the tail for us;  partly inexperience, partly over-exuberance & partly a technical installation issue:  Pulling away from a time control in a damp hollow on Exmoor, in my attempt to get up to the set speed quickly, one of the rear wheels lost traction and spun wildly sending the engine up to about 5500rpm.  I idly wondered why it happened (could it be the dummy with the heavy right foot?) as the car is supposed to be fitted with a limited slip differential (which is now something I should take a look at).

At 5500rpm in first gear, the XJS would normally be doing about 55mph.  The regularity section had an average speed of no more than 30mph, so while the wheels were spinning at nearly twice the target speed, the rally trip meter (which on our car is driven by signals to the speedometer coming from the rear differential) was busy ticking up the distance whilst we were effectively standing still.  

Neither Graham nor I immediately realised the implication of this short moment; but as time and distance is calculated down to 100th of a mile/second, as the regularity section progressed, Graham soon found there was a discrepancy between our trip meter and the road book.  This coincided with a navigation section for which we had set just a few locations to verify our average speed so there was little opportunity to recalculate.   We thought we were roughly (+/- 5 seconds) on time, but by the end of the section we were 24 seconds adrift.

After our best result of the rally occurring on the previous regularity, with 8th overall (dropping just 5 seconds) we slipped down to 48th for the final section....such are the vaugeries of rallying.  In the final result, the 205 beat us by one second!

Nevertheless, we did manage to attain our goal of finishing in the top third, 24th overall and 4th in class.   

The event was won by a 1927 Bentley Derby 4.25 and the top ten had cars from every era, proving the scoring system allows any car to win....maybe one day, perhaps the most comfortable car in the event, an XJS; but let's not run before we can walk...a top 20 finish would be nice next time.

Giving it some welly on the last test of the day

When we reviewed our results in detail, we found a few more frustratingly avoidable errors which when rectified will help us improve on the next event, scheduled for Spring 2021. I spent a long time thinking about the tank-slapper on Porlock Hill and what I could have done better. A similar hairpin later in the event was taken with a satisfying tail slide on exit without drama...so maybe it was simply inexperience;or as a professional driver might say, I simply ran out of talent!

The car soaked up all the punishment doled out to it and coped with the 560 miles driven over the weekend effortlessly.  The Jaguar is a great GT car.  If the driver & navigator can improve by 10%, we will turn it into a competitive historic rally car.  The next event will be Spring 2021, but in the meantime, I want to find some autotests to put the car and myself through a bit more training.  

There is still a long list of to-dos for the Jaguar, so there will be a fair bit of work to do over the winter....including the never sleeping rust I conveniently put to the back of my mind this year.

Maybe I'll get to grips with the HVAC system before next summer!