Part 18 - Jacoby Jaguars - A Year of Downs and Ups - 2022 in Review
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| HC2 - Bicester Heritage - "Left of Q 360" |
2022 started with a truly cracking event, HERO's Per Ardua Ad Infinitum with Graham navigating. This was followed by Dexter's debut HERO event, Hero Challenge One, where we missed a top ten finish by one small error. See full reports in Blog Parts 15, 16 & 17.
There was a largish time gap before the next Hero Challenge event, so I decided that a couple of HRCR events would fill that time admirably.
With Dexter unavailable, Graham kindly jumped back into the navigator's seat for the Hughes Rally...
Hughes Rally, May 2022 - Kent
Inevitably there comes an event when what can go wrong, does. I met Graham early on the day of the rally. He had been up much of the previous night trying to plot the route, but it just wasn't working for him. He was dog tired and just a little irritable!
The CoC's (Clerk of the Course) route was particularly devious and made good use of "not as map" (NAM) junctions, intersecting symbols for transmission lines, woods, footpaths and much more. At one NAM crossroad we met three other competitors appearing from three different directions....we were not the only ones having difficulties.
We had been warned that the previous week's heavy rain had washed away the road surface on one section...and as we managed to get the long, low Jaguar XJS through the section, the CoC wasn't taking any excuses at the finish from other competitors who said the road was impassable and should be deleted from the results!
The rally continued onto Manston Airfield in the far eastern corner of Kent (yes, the one now housing asylum seekers arriving in small boats). The perimeter fields were very overgrown, but a path had been mown through the long grass as route for the rally cars. This presented the problem that if you deviated from the trimmed path, the vegetation was so tall you might not find your way back. We were nearly T-boned by another competitor who had completely lost their bearings in the long grass.
After a break for lunch, the off-road tests continued at the airfield, this time on broken concrete. It was really rough on the car, and we were way off the pace. Half way through we arrived at a control, waited for the count-down and punched the accelerator. The engine spun, but we didn't move.
We pushed the car off the start line to reveal a large puddle of transmission fluid disappearing into the ground. Our rally was over. A kindly marshal towed the car out of the airfield onto the public road so I could summon the AA. Whilst I removed the rally plates and number, Graham organised a lift for himself back to the start to collect his car and go home. It had been a frustrating day.
I called the AA and asked for a flat bed truck to relay the car home, and settled down to a long wait. To my surprise, within a few minutes a standard AA patrol pulled up. He had been around the corner at the end of his shift and decided to see what was needed. I described the problem and the patrolman agreed that the car would have to be collected by truck; and just to let me know he wasn't fooled by the removal of the rally insignia, mentioned that he was aware there had been a rally at the airfield that afternoon as we were not the only car with mechanical maladies.
He was cool about the our situation but more exercised about the classic cars taken for an annual outing in the summer months after standing in a garage for remainder of the year, which invariably break down and need rescuing!
Just as he was about to arrange the pick-up truck, he casually asked whether the loss of fluid could be something trivial, such as a burst hose? I had to confess this had not occurred to me, as I assumed we had holed the transmission sump on a lump of concrete or split the transmission oil cooler.
A quick look under the bonnet indeed confirmed a burst pipe in temporary bodge I had cobbled together when replacing the radiator, and forgot to properly replace. The AA man said it didn't change things as he did not carry that type of pipe....but I remembered that I had the other end of that bodged pipe in my tool kit in the boot. Within a few minutes the pipe was replaced, but now we needed 9 litres of ATF for a 1980s transmission....not something readily available at service stations.
Above and beyond the call of duty, the AA patrolman called a number of motor factors in the area to find out if any had the necessary fluids in stock. The nearest was Halfords about 20 minutes away in Broadstairs and he gave me a lift there and back in his patrol van. Within an hour, I was on the way home without further incident.
Back home, a £2 length of high pressure hose replaced the temporary fix. It was a salutary lesson in car preparation.
Finishing Position: DNF
East Anglian Classic 2022 - Norfolk
Dexter and I decided to try another HRCR, this time organised by our local motor club, Chelmsford MC. The day started badly: Due to leave home at 6.15am for a steady drive to Norfolk, the engine turned over, coughed and died.
After many failed attempts at starting the engine (and, no doubt, waking all the neighbours), we started going through a checklist of possible causes: Fuel pump, lack of sparks, flooded engine etc. *
We got as far as taking out half the spark plugs to check for soot/sparks but to no avail. After an hour, I was about to call it a day as the battery had almost failed, but on the last attempt the engine fired, I gunned it and we were away. A rapid drive to the start seemed to clear any remaining gremlins.
The HRCR events are a step up: Almost all the entries are fully prepared rally cars, trailered to the event. We turn up in a fairly standard road going Jag....we know we're not going to feature highly in the results.
The first section was an off-road stage: It looked simple, comprising three straights linked by two 90 degree turns. It should have been fast, but it was so rough I thought we might break the car in the first mile of the event. Even taking it relatively easily, we came out of the section with two flat tyres!
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| Section 1: Was there actually a road behind us? |
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| Flint shredded tyre |
There is only one spare tyre in the car, but luckily a can of tyre-weld managed to fix the the second wheel. More worrying was that the high proportion of flint in the soil was cutting chucks out of the tyre treads.
We had great fun on the remainder of the event, especially on the tarmac test sections (where we were faster (11th overall on one memorable section). The off-road sections were more unkind to us (one large yump had us airborne and Dexter's head crash into the roof on landing) as we couldn't match the pace of the true rally cars, but we were doing OK in our class.
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| One way... |
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| ...and then the other. |
Hero Challenge Two - July 2022 - Bicester, Oxfordshire
We had requested an early start time as we needed to be back in Essex early on Saturday evening for a close friend's party. We were slotted in amongst the most experienced crews...not that it should matter, but it did introduce a certain level of expectation!
The start was a car park at Silverstone Circuit (shame it wasn't the circuit - but this was otherwise engaged by the McLaren Owners Club). A link section took us to the Bill Gwynne Rally school. From previous experience I knew this would be very slippery and dusty.
The car still had the ropey set of tyres that had suffered on the East Anglian Classic. In case of tyre failure, I had decided to take two spares...which meant taking the wheels off the project XJ-SC and lashing them down in the boot. There were two problems associated with this decision: Much more weight behind the rear axle and two spare wheels that had tyres that were so old they had no date stamps!
I set off gingerly on the first test and found that extra weight very disconcerting as the rear end wanted to come round to meet the front at the slightest provocation. Luckily we didn't need the spares, but the weight penalty plagued us on all the tests and we accrued more time penalties than we would have otherwise expected.
Nevertheless, Dexter's young brain was fizzing and getting all the right directions. Our timing was just off by a few seconds at 24 of the 26 timing points controls, but we suffered a maximum penalty (1min each) on two sections, dropping us down into the midfield.
The event concluded with four tests back at Bicester Heritage. As we have found to be a common occurrence, we were fast on the all-tarmac tests (as high as 14th= overall, despite the extra weight), but disappointingly slow off-road.
It was again an enjoyable event, but a middling result. We set off for home promptly after the finish, surprising my wife, Davina, with an on-time arrival. Scrubbed up and in our best whistle & flutes, we made the party on time. It was a fabulous night!
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| Ready to Party |
Finishing Position: 45th/80. Class Position: 5th
Hero Challenge Three - October 2022 - Petersfield, West Sussex
I drove up from Padstow, Cornwall to the start at Petersfield, Hampshire and Dexter drove down from Epping, Essex after school in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire to meet me for scutineering. Together we had covered hundreds of miles just to get to the start.
Scrutineering was an unexpected treat, hosted by Vintage Bentley in Petersfield. We were given a tour of their workshop and showroom, where the cream of 1920s & 1930s Bentleys are prepared for racing and rallying for clients around the world.....It is another world!
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| Vintage Bentley's Workshop in Petersfield |
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| Engine Testing Room |
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| Next to a car I can't afford |
As the Hero Challenges go through the year, the difficulty level ramps up...but Dexter was more than up to the challenge. A new set of boots had been fitted to the car for the event and I was keen to see how they performed. We have changed from the very soft Avon Winter tyres to more up-to-date Vredestein All Season tyres. They are still a narrow 215/65-15, which is the factory specified Winter size.
The early start had drivers and navigators on their toes as the event started with four tests at the old military base at Bordon. Great fun was had on a combination of slippery tests and fast tarmac sections which had the rear end of the Jaguar swinging right and left as we powered around the tracks and cones; the new tyres giving me much more confidence in the car.
Devious as ever, the organisers had us repeat the tests with two cars running 30 seconds apart on each test. There was a split just before the end: First loop, turn left, second loop turn right....it sounds easy, but in the heat of the moment, it caught out many an experienced competitor, as they followed the car in front down the wrong split. We (I) nearly succumbed too, but to Dexter's credit he insisted I turn as he correctly instructed.
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| Click to see us showboating for the camera! https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkxg5HK26N_gYvQfVXIHNonYYJVKS4QsEr3 |
We had a great first half, running in the top 10 overall by mid morning. A force-majeur delay en-route sadly cost us time we could not make up, encountering a farmer reversing a trailer into his yard, a few metres from the next time control. The 24 seconds delay pushed us down to 12th at lunchtime.
It was a highly enjoyable event and a very satisfying result, even though we didn't quite crack the top 10. It was a great end to Dexter's debut season on the Hero Challenge.
Finishing Position: 15th/83. Class Position: 3rd. Team Award Winner
Leafy Lanes 12 Car Navigational Rally October 2022 - Charlbury
Graham persuaded me to compete in my first 12 car navigational rally. This is an evening event held in the hours of darkness as a test for the navigators. Timed to the minute (rather than the second as on regularity rallies), it allows crews a little more leeway as you have 59 seconds before the next minute is clocked.
The closest we had done to this type of rally was in the mid 1980s in a Fiat X/19, so we could be forgiven for being a bit rusty!
Despite going the wrong way at the first junction and losing about 5 minutes, Graham got to grips with the old fashioned (but strangely familiar) Plot 'n Bash navigation as route information was given out at the start of each section as the clock started. Stopping occasionally in the middle of nowhere to read out 8-figure map references to my navigator brought back memories of road rallies past.
Covering around 85 miles, we finished at a cosy pub in Charlbury in time for last orders. Results were quickly produced and to our (and everyone else's) astonishment we triumphed with a First Place. Graham's accurate navigation had trumped the faster speed of 2nd place crew Mel & Tim (Winners of HC3).
Finishing Position: 1st Overall, 1st in Class
Bonfire 12 Car Navigational Rally November 2022 - Bicester
Given our success on the Leafy Lanes event, Graham was keen to try to reprise the result.
Consequently, the first properly cold November night found us stamping our feet to keep warm in the Bicester Park & Ride car park as we signed on to Matt Endean's Bonfire 12 Car Navigational Rally.
On the way to Bicester, I had blown the fuse for the navigational clocks, trip meter and map light by fiddling with a connection between my phone and the £9.99 eBay radio. No matter, I would have time to fix it before the start. Opening the boot in the car park, I found that I had forgotten to pack any tools or fuses. Nevertheless, I managed to extract the radio (I believed the correct in-line fuse(s) would be found behind it), but being a 1990 Jaguar, the logic of the electrics is not always as expected: The two glass fuses were fine, so there must be another....if only I knew where.
Graham was unconcerned as he had a battery operated magnifying Potilight to use, so we decided we could do without the rest.
Of more concern was the droning emanating from the chassis. This was progressively getting worse. I put this down to the front wheel bearings. There was nothing to do but ignore it for now.
On this occasion, Graham found his groove before the first junction and quickly got on with his plotting. With just one very minor mis-plot (quickly correctly whilst we were going the wrong way round a Long Way Round triangle, Graham's navigation and map reading was spot on; we picked up all the code boards and dropped a scant 4 minutes overall.
This was the first event on which we used Sapphire Rally Solutions App. The App allows an event to be run without marshals en-route. Time Controls and Route Checks and direction of approach are pre-programmed so competitors only have to confirm their time at each control via the App. The App uses GPS coordinates and stores data packets to be sent to a cloud server as and when a mobile signal is obtained. Despite a little trepidation before the event, we found it worked well and was easy to use by navigator or driver.
The 12 Car format is a low cost entry into navigational events using any car, so we were pleased to see a good proportion of first timers and enthusiastic youngsters competing. It can only be good for the sport.
Matt created a route of some variety with open fast roads followed by tricky winding single tracks though the Chilterns before opening out again for a swift run to the finish. A very entertaining route for all classes with the difference in navigation solely being the time available for plotting (beginners had a whole week to plot and check the route on maps, the rest of us had no pre-plot time at all).
The result demonstrated this was an effective handicap system: We were beaten by a young beginner navigator (although driven by an experienced and very fast Dad!) and no-one fell foul of the DSOs (Driving Standards Officer) along the route.
Finishing Position: 2nd Overall, 1st in Class
Flintshire
That concludes our program for 2022. The car needs a little work before the next season, (at least front wheel bearings and an oil service), but held up extremely well on a fairly busy twelve months.
Another year has passed where no sump guard was added to the car....but now it feels as though we're on borrowed time, given the number of dents in the engine and transmission sumps! A sump guard is again on the list of to-dos.
As always, rust never sleeps in an old Jaguar. The cosmetic rust repairs completed in lockdown are now appearing once more and need attention as well as a little welding needed on one floorplan (letting in too much water now).
Fingers crossed, the V12 engine is still as smooth as silk - you can balance the proverbial coin on the intake at idle - and mechanically, the car seems sound.
There is, of course, an upgrade wish-list....maybe Father Christmas will drop a couple of exhaust pipes and four rear shocks down the chimney!
All the best,
Curtis.
Back in 2023.
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