Wales, famous for its once great coal industry, a once great rugby
team, 'Funny man' Max "OGGI, OGGI, OGG!" Boyce, Tom Jones, that
woman off Hi de Hi and a million sheep jokes, none of which are
suitable for publishing in this magazine. Not a lot going for it really has
it, except every October it plays host to one of the hardest and most
spectacular events of the off reading calender.

With all the preparation done and dusted, a service van loaded up with
everything bar the proverbial kitchen sink and with a bulging wallet full
of petrol money Team Baldwin-LRW headed south for Mid Wales and
the host town of Bufith Wells,

Our team consisted of me doing the driving and my Dad doing the navigating.

Our crack service team were Dave Cookson, Adie Moorhouse, both

competitive Pennine members and Johnny Parkes , a work colleague

of Daves who'd never been to any form of off road event before.

Johnny had even had to hire his waterproofs for the weekend. Talk

about a babtism of fire.

We were to be joined later by our Management car crew of LRW Ed

John Carrol) and LRW photograher Gary Stuart.

4 hours after leaving Hebden Bridge we landed at the Royal Welsh
Agricultural Showground site to be greeted by Graham Webb who'd
saved us a space next to him on the pits/parking area, Graham was
servicing for Brent Taylor and Jeremy Fearn in their Hot Diesel Bowler
and had his elaborate service vehicle all set up, complete with his new
even bigger awning. Remember size isn't everything Graham.

With the motor off the trailer, all we had to do was go fill up the jerry
cans and top up the racer at the petrol station just down the road. How
I bet that guy loves the Hillrally coming to town, 80 motors, most of
them big, greedy V8's. KERCHING!! Just to say the pump knocked
itself off before I'd finished filling the cans up!

The pumps way of saying "are you sure you want to spend this much"

That done, we went to check in at our digs down the road. After a
meal at a pub back in town where our genial host tried to overcharge
us, (5 Yorkshire men he must be joking) we returned to the
Showground for a natter.

It wasn't long before John Nelson rolled up with his stash of the
biggest cans of lager in the world, Worryingly he said he'd got them for
his wife but he'd pinched some to take away for the weekend,
Brent made a dramatic entrance and with a 'bang' by reversing his
caravan straight into the tow hitch of his trailer putting a neat hole in
the back panel of his caravan.

Up early on Friday morning for our noise check and then onto
scrutineering. After a thorough looking over ("how old are these
wheels?") we get the 'pass' sticker and then proceed into parc-ferme
where the motor is parked. Once you've left it, that's it, you don't go
back to it until 10 minutes before you're start time.
It has to be said all the polished and newly painted machinery all
parked up in nice neat rows made an impressive site underneath the
sodium glow of the parc-ferme hall lights.

The cancellation of Fridays Showground's spectator stage meant we
had only two special stages to do on the first day. It also meant our
crew didn't have leave the showground. While they busied themselves
at the burger van admiring the large portions on offer we set off from
the Rally Start and headed North out of town for the first special stage.
I won't bore you with a blow by blow of every stage. In fact if truth be
known I can't really remember them all. All I do remember is that of the
first two stages, one was very rough the other long and fast. A lot of
the rally is run on hard forest tracks, so the first and second day is all
about getting used to the handling on this type of surface. We make it
back to the Showground for our service. We've bent a wheel rim and
bust a shocker so already we've done more damage than last year.
Our crew soon have it fixed and after a wash off its off into parc- ferme
for the night.

Find out we're running 27^th overall after the first day. It surprizes us
because we didn't think we were going that well. Unfortunately it
wasn't good enough for our crew. They were more concerned about
our failure to pass the ugliest racer in the rally. Already there are
retirements amongst the 75 starters. Spare a thought for the team from
Aberdeen whose engine had blown up on the very first stage.

From our digs we head off up the road for an evening meal to find
ourselves in what must surely be the only Celine Dion themed
restaurant in the world. Piped 'Celine' wafting through the air and a
huge picture of the great woman looking down at us as we ate. As we
ate we debated whether they had a chain of similar establishments
honouring other such overblown, singing that communicates with
dolphins, type females. However the chips were plentiful and the bread
and butter pudding portions large (classy fellas us ya.know) so with our
bellies full we retire back to our digs for a nightcap.

Saturday morning and our crew skip breakfast to get to the service
area some 40 miles away. Meanwhile we set off from the start to do
the first of todays stages and the start of the Hillrally proper.
As we approach the finish on the days second stage we pass a p***ed
off looking Brent and Jeremy parked up at the side of the track, out
with a bust gearbox.

On one of the mornings stages, we're tramping down a track
approaching a deep washed out gulley. We can see the track ahead
disappears beneath deep mucky water. My Dad hits the washers in
anticipation of the impending tidal wave of brown stuff, at that precise
moment we hit something that sent us skywards for what seemed like
an age. We come crashing down to one side of the water splash with
me thinking we must have broken something and waiting for the bang
and a clatter of a bust diff but the motor never missed a beat, so with
us both laughing out loud we press on to the end surviving remarkably
unscathed.

Later in the afternoon we do a re- run of one of the stages we've
previously done in the morning. During the mornings run, one part of
the track, which cut through some trees was getting really badly rutted
with us just scrambling through in places. By the time we're on our
second time round it's got even worse becoming a boggy, claggy
Camel Trophy type scramble. As we struggle to climb a slight rise in
the track we grind to a halt with all four wheels spinning, bellied out
and going nowhere without a pull. With no marshalls to be seen and
with us blocking the track, we can only sit and wait for the following
motor. With the clock ticking we feared this was the end of the rally for
us. Out because we've run out of time by getting stuck! After taking
some time to extricate us from the mire, the following field had by now
all become bogged down, blocking the course. As everyone towed,
rocked and thrutched to try and free themselves another competitor

came walking back up the track to tell us all the course was blocked
further on by Dan Evans who'd rolled his borrowed 'Mattserati'. A
blessing for us, this meant everyone got the same 'maximum' time for
this stage and we were still in the rally Hurrah!. Proving that never
mind ability and reliability, you need a fair amount of luck to get you to
the finish.

With no problems throughout the rest of the day our final service halt
back at the Showground was limited to fitting some shocker bushes
and changing another wheel as a precautionary measure. Mind you it's
happen just as well we had very little to do. Due to the distance back
from the Service area and the route all the crews had to follow we
managed to beat our service crew back to the showground. The
organisers will have to do their homework a little better for next time.

By the end of the second day there's plenty of crews out. One guy
who'd been running behind us for most of the afternoon suddenly
didn't appear behind us out of one stage. The guy running behind him
told us he'd past him not long into the stage with the front of the
chassis ripped clean off. On this event the rough bits are ROUGH and
the fast bits are FAST which means if you do get it wrong then the
consequences are more than likely going to be painful and very likely
terminal. We've survived intact and climb up to 20^th overall.

Saturday night and it's curry night. Except we decide it's perhaps not
such a good idea in view of the lack of toilet facilities at the service
area (nice one!) We opt for Celine and her never ending supply of
chips. However our management car crew decide that they just can't
do without their Saturday night fix of lager and curry. Besides they have
the luxury of not being tied to the service area and are able to get out
to any lavatorial facility that they see out and about.

However things did not quite go to plan for our pair of redneck media
types. First they decide to go for a pre-curry beer to whet their
appetite. They end up in Bulith Wells's top disco nightspot listening to
the top banging tunes of the moment. They get talking to some lads
from Pennine who inform them that the only curry house in town has
closed down... They then decide to stick it out in the pub and
consequently get now’t to eat. As they leave the pub to get a taxi to
take them the 7 miles back to our digs they're informed by "Jones the
Taxi" that they face a wait of over an hour for a taxi! Ahh the joys of

rural Welsh life. Faced with the prospect of having to wait out in the

cold for a taxi surrounded by celebrating Welsh rugby fans or start out

on the long walk home our pair simply 'nick' some lovely Welsh ladies

taxi from under their noses.  

Now it should be noted that these two guys when not writing about or

photographing 4X4's are likely to be seen resplendent in black leather

astride their "polished chopped Hogs" all glistening chrome and steel

and have not long since returned from an big bike event in America

organised by the Hells Angels.  

I bet Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper never had nights out tike these

two, Sunday and a full team compliment for breakfast, however our two

rampaging "Outlaws" are looking decidedly worse for wear and go for

the simple toast option.  

We head off for the start while our crew head off for the same service

area as yesterday. As we leave the start we're still running behind the

"ugly car" once again much to the disgust of our team, "you can't let

that thing beat you!".  

As we start todays final stages you're suddenly aware that you've got

this far and you don't want to blow it. So do you keep the hammer

down or do you back off and go for the finish? Of course you keep

going faster!

By now we had mastered the forest cornering technique, forget the
brakes, forget coasting round the corners, hook a front wheel into the
corner and just keep the power on. As we fishtailed our way round the
forest comers I was suddenly starting to relax and enjoy myself
especially with the motor performing faultlessly. The fast bits were
getting faster with us touching 60mph on some of the straights and
running out of gears to go any faster!

While winding our way round one forest stage we were caught by a
following motor, I eased off and pulled over to let him pass. As he
passed us we followed him into a series of bends. With every lift of his
throttle this fella was spitting out metre long orange flames of unburnt
petrol out at us. "Bloody Hell"

We come into service with just 3 stages to go and our crew tell us
we're up to 17^th overall but they're more suited that we've we've finally
past the "ugly motor" With the by now familiar service routine of petrol

top up and wash off over, we head out to see if we can possibly gain
another one or two places. This was when we hit our first problem...

As we set off from the start on the longest (Smiles) and fastest stage
the wipers packed up. Luckily there wasn't any surface water on this
stage but there was plenty of typical inclement Welsh weather. Misty,
drizzle or "mizzle" if you like. This was just enough to coat the screen
and seriously reduce visibility. As we struggled on we noticed the
wiper arms looked to be trying to work. Thinking they may have
become jammed we stopped alongside a handy marshal! and asked
him to free them off, but that idea didn't work. We pressed on as fast
as I dare even unclipping my belts to allow me to hang out the side in
places. With my face pressed up to the screen we crossed the finish
with Glen McKeith not far behind us indicating we'd lost a fair chunk of
time.

Luckily there was a queue for the next and penultimate stage. This
gave us a chance to frantically mess about with the wipers. We
managed to get them to work albeit with a seriously reduced sweep
and still no wiser as to why they'd stopped in the first place.

As we headed out into the stage we were understandably reluctant
to use the wipers so with my Dads finger on the wiper button and me
shouting "wipe!" at the point where I couldn't see any more we made it
to the end. But not before having to take 3 or 4 go's to get over a well
dug out hump. The motor behind us caught us up, this meant we had
to pull over to let him pass and then the engine cut out going down a
steep descent slewing us across the track into a tree. It was starting to
go horribly wrong.

We came into the final 20 minute service halt before the final stage. By
now we'd tracked the wiper problem to the wiper motor and a chewed
up wiper cable causing the wipers to jam up. Luckily we had a spare,
so with all hands on deck we managed to change the motor and get to
the time control with a couple of minutes to spare.

This last stage we'd done a couple of times before so we had a good
idea of where it went. A lot of the stage was deep ruts with a waist high
banking either side. This meant it was like driving on a giant Scalextric
track. We went hell for leather and drove as fast as I dare in an effort
to try and daw back some time. We survive a couple of hairy airborne
moments but make it to the end in one piece. All that remained was a

20 minute drive on the road back to the Showground and book in at
the finish time control.

We'd made it to the end with no more than cosmetic damage and
wiper problems aside the motor had performed faultlessly.

While we wait for the results to become final we have a post Hillrally

celebratory beer or two and grab a bite to eat at the van with the large

"baps".  

After a couple of hours the results start to filter through and we're well

chuffed to find we've finished 8^th in our class and 19^th overall.. Not bad

when you consider we're lumped in with the Team Megabucks big

boys just because we've got a 3.9 engine.

Other notable Pennine results were lan Bartram who won his class in

his first time in Wales and managed 6^th overall.

Glen McKeith won the very closely fought battle of the diesels and

squeezed home a minute in front of us in 18^th overall.

Spare a thought for Tim Morgan in his "Hot to Trot" 90. Within sight of

the finish fine of the very last stage he became bellied out in a bog. He

and Navigator Anthony Aveyard set about with the hi-lift to get

themselves out. As they did, another competitor came alongside

whacked the hi-lift, leaving it useless and them high and dry. By the

time they got out they'd dropped about 10 places.

A final word about our service crew Dave, Adie and Johnny who

performed brilliantly throughout. It's worth reminding everyone that to

compete in an event such as this you can't do it without the help of a

service crew.

All of them volunteered to give up their own time, used up holiday

entitlement, spent their own money, got p**** wet through and filthy

and got to see absolutely nothing of the rally.

They really are the unsung heroes behind all of the entries. Cheers

fellas.

"Just one thing lad's who the hell ate all the wagon wheels...?
You greedy B!!!!!""

Kevin Baldwin

WHITWORTH OCTOBER CCV TRIAL

Just short of the site Colin's motor got up steam, so we stopped for a top up. this was after we'd chosen the flattest route through Rochdale.

After unloading and dismantling our motors we loaded them up with sticks and setoff to set out the sections.

Robert and I did one while Colin, Nigel and Julie set out another close by.

The screwballing team was down to one. Poor Brian.

We set off in two groups as I set off the wrong way and ended up in a s**t hole

just before the first section.

As I quickly looked at the first section, Colin got stuck in some deep muddy ruts up a bank. Nigel managed to get a bit further on. Then it was our turn. We ended up getting another gate further on than Nigel.

On the section we set out, I only got half way round with Nigel managing a clear.

On Colin and Nigel's section we set off well and then slid to the right coming over a mound. We ended up leaning right over at 47degrees. I went into panic mode and

turned right quickly to avoid rolling. Penny said I did the right thing.

Guess who got another clear!

I got stuck on the next section along with Dave Rogers. Robert told us that there'd

been a bad roll over on the end of this section OUCH.

Next section was a very rocky. We bounced over the rocks expecting them to

crunch on the crossmembers but they didn't, we managed to get a one on this

one.

We then drove back to the section we'd left Robert at earlier where we on first.

On this section we had to turn right down a rocky bank. As we went down the

bank, the steering wheel whipped out of my hands leaving us stuck up against a

big rock. Dave and Phil shoved us off. it had taken off my new hub cap and

scraped down my petrol tank guard plus I'd sprained two fingers. Ouch!

As we made our way to the next section we became stuck on a mound. Penny said

"don't back off Keith there's a big drop to our left" so we waited for Dave Rogers to come and give us a tow off. Thanks Dave.

After dinner it started to rain and the next two sections were a waste of money.

By 2 o'clock we'd done 12 sections so we went out and reversed 3 of the mornings

sections. I reversed the one we'd set out .It was a bit tame at the end so we sent it off a step bank.  

As we set out the section I turned round to see Penny speeding through a large

puddle to try and wet her friend Julie. She only just missed her.

On the last section we ended up having to move the start because everybody was

having problems. We got as far as the 3/2 gates before leaning right over again

with Penny shouting "keep it going"

Thanks to all the marshalls. Joy and Brian. We had a good Team Pennine
day.

Keith Normanton 108

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