Syd Stelvio - London to Lisbon Day 7
Pamplona to Leon – 430km
The morning began early for day seven of the London Lisbon rally, but after a non-driving day in the famous city of Pamplona everyone was bursting to get up and running – though preferably not whilst being chased by any Bulls.
Pamplona had been oppressively hot during our brief stay, making life uncomfortable for those that needed to work on their cars during our 24 hours of shore leave. The sweeps had managed to squirrel themselves away into a shady corner at least, as they set to work fixing the Escort with a broken half shaft. They did in fact manage to sort the problem before the occupants of the Ford had returned from their six hours round trip to collect a replacement part from Santander, but at least the boys now have a spare should it happen again.
Despite leaving the city early, it seemed to take forever to get out onto the open road. It wasn’t so much the morning traffic, but the sheer number of traffic lights that appeared to outnumber the cars. It seems a touch foolish to me to have so many red lights on show when your city is famous for allowing mad Bulls to run around the streets, it was certainly a red rag to the drivers as we all inched our way out of the metropolis.
The day would include four regularities and a test, but also plenty of highway as we pushed west towards Leon. Thankfully the countryside here is a beautiful verdant green, and with very little traffic on the main roads cruising down the highway does bring its own sort of tranquillity.
The same couldn’t be said of the regularities, that would provide plenty of head scratching for even the best navigators – especially so now that timing has returned. The first of these was a reasonably gentle introduction to the day, climbing through hilltop villages as the morning sun cast long shadows over a golden landscape. There were a few tight bends to navigate between the old houses, but largely it was a moderate beginning to our first full day of competition since we had left England.
Back onto the empty highway and a short run bought the rally to Circuit Navarra, for a test on the facilities excellent kart track. The main circuit was ringing out to the sounds of junior formula single seaters testing, perhaps offering a bit of inspiration to our drivers as they went at the circuit nestled in between the hills. In the ultra-competitive Class 5, Dick and Harry Baines were certainly attempting to run a bit better than they had managed previously, and an impressive 1:35 certainly put them up there with the faster drivers but still left them third in class with four seconds of penalty. The fastest overall went to another Porsche, crewed by Peter and Louise Myles, who tripped the beam at 1:30 seconds and came away from the test with no penalty, consolidating their third place in the overall standings.
After a coffee to quell the adrenaline there was a short run to the hills outside Logrono for one of the more unusual regularities of the event, a 16km section shoehorned into an area of just a few km’s square, that ran along narrow farm tracks between vineyards and olive groves. There were plenty of opportunities to head in the wrong direction and miss a slot, made even more overwhelming as the route passed by itself several times, leaving crews to see other cars heading in different directions and bringing doubt and indecision into the equation. There were several crews who missed controls completely, but as far as well know everyone made it out of the labyrinth, though for some it may have felt a bit like purgatory.
Thank goodness then that the next reg was a little easier, with a run through more rolling farmland, rich with the fragrance of Yellow Broom and wild Rosemary, the scent of which had been in the air for most of the day – including on the highways. There were more quaint villages, and a fabulous climb up the valley of the Rio Bañuelos offering views to the distant snow-capped peaks of the Sierra de la Demanda.
Much further down the road the final reg of the day lay in wait, and it was ready to do a bit of sorting out. Reasonably innocuous to look at on a map, and largely just one road, but it was a road that was punctuated by a pair of small villages, in which one wrong slot would lead to disaster. Of course, you can make your life even harder if you forget to say zero your trip, or don’t start your clock, the latter of which was suffered by the white Triumph of Dave and Jackie Batchelor who had been in the fight for the podium. The mishap cost them a chunk of time on the reg, reduced a little by their joker, but with a final penalty tally for the day of 2:06s they have dropped to tenth overall.
Others in the top ten fared better, but the best on the day were Dick and Harry Baines with just 14 seconds of penalty, that has now put them back in the lead by just one second over Graham Platts and Neil Ripley. This despite Dicks best efforts to sabotage his day and attempt to drive down the wrong motorway after the final reg, as he over-ruled his navigator. You aren’t in Lincolnshire now Dick! Benjamin A Blumenstein and Ricky Blumenstein in the Fiat 124 went one step further and did in fact drive down the wrong motorway. If anyone in Spain finds them, could they please post them back to Leon, or maybe Muxia, which is where we will end the day tomorrow.
Syd.