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Rally
Reports 2000 Season - Mewla Rally
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Solutions
The story of the 2000
Mewla Rally could almost be phrased "Two steps forward,
one step backwards" for Mark II Motorsport. After
the bitter disappointment of Avon Park, driver Mark
Welch accompanied the WRC to DOME in an effort to
get the performance side sorted.After half a day,
most of the niggles had not only been identified
but also sorted, they were so simple! Firstly, the
brakes had been binding badly as new pads had gone
in. As soon as the brakes warmed up, the rears locked
on! Secondly, the water injection system was blocked
up which means that once the engine gets warm, it
looses power. Finally, and most crucially, one of
the air injectors that controls turbo boost was
cracked and leaking, thus max power was not being
achieved. Add this little lot together and the result
was a hugely smiling Welch behind the wheel whilst
testing the car at Pershore Airfield - we were back!
A Quality
Field & A New Recruit
The Mewla would be the
same format as last year (where Welch finished 4th)
- 4 stages around the Royal Welsh showground in
Builth on Saturday, and 2 up on the ranges. Then
on Sunday, 15 stages across the demanding Mynnd
Epynnt Army ranges. It was a top quality field with
4 Metro 6R4's, 4 Escort WRC's, 2 GpA Subaru Imprezas
and a whole lot of other Escort Cosworths. The Mark
II WRC lined up for SS1 with a much more confident
Welch behind the wheel, co driven again by new recruit
James Sunderland.
Saturday
A good clean run saw
12th fastest time but with literally just a couple
of seconds separating the field. SS2, which was
a repeat, saw a similar performance hampered by
dust that was now hanging in the air. From Builth
the crews went up onto the East side of the range
to tackle the Concrete Road stage (SS3&4). The Metros
stormed through here with Jon Mercer leading 9 times
champion John Price. Again, Mark II was on the fringes
of the top ten but the times set were SIGNIFICANTLY
faster than last year. With the car really on song
and the crews confidence growing the final 2 stages
of the day back at the showground were rattled off
with 4th fastest on SS6 underlining the improvement,
just 3 seconds off the fastest time. An upbeat Mark
II Motorsport went off to bed that evening very
happy. The pre event goal of a top ten finished
looked very achievable. |
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Sunday Morning
Sunday morning was met
with more good news. Bruce, one of our trusty service
crew, flicked his TV on in the guesthouse and looked
at teletext - we were 10th! 1st. Jon Mercer MG Metro
6R4 6th Steven Hendy Escort Cosworth 2nd.John Price
MG Metro 6R4 7th Geoff Smith Escort WRC 3rd Peter
Lloyd MG Metro 6R4 8th Mark Worley Escort Cosworth
4th John Morgan Escort Cosworth 9th Steve Fleck
Subaru Impreza 5th Eian Pritchard Subaru Imprezza
10th Mark Welch Escort WRC Sunday would be Interesting!
SS7 was a short blast
from the area known as Piccadilly to the top of
the notorious 3 Step Hill, the scene of Lyndon Bartons
massive accident 2 years ago. No problem, 11th fastest.
SS8 was Dixie's to Burma Road. Again a very tricky
stage with 3 6th gear jumps and NO room for error.
Despite a small communication problem, the WRC came
out in one piece and in contention! SS9 was the
first blast along the new road. This is a 10-mile
blast at high speed right across the ranges, with
many blind brows, descents and high-speed straights.
Mark and James were fractionally off the pace, the
driver admitting to still being a bit rusty. The
car was running well although the front diff was
getting noisy……
The next 3 stages were
repeats of 7,8 and 9. The 2 short ones were completed
16 seconds faster than previously, moving the
team up to 8th after the demise of Pritchard through
an accident and Geoff Smith with mechanical failure.
Problems
The long new road
stage started well, but after about 7 miles a
vibration started through the steering that got
worse very quickly. "It's a puncture" was James
assessment. With chunks of rubber flying skywards,
Mark couldn't disagree. "We limped out of the
stage dropping about 1min15secs and changed the
wheel" said Mark."However, the tyre wasn't flat,
it had literally thrown its thread off". Whilst
the lost time was frustrating, Mark and James
still felt that top 10 was within their grasp,
that was until they got back to service. Bruce
and Julian set about the car and discovered large
chunks of metal in the oil of the front diff.
Closer inspection revealed that the pinion bearing
had failed causing everything to run out of mesh.
Out....!
That was the end of
the 2000 Mewla for Mark II Motorsport. The car
was fast, competitive and a joy to drive. The
weakest link had been exposed but with bigger
diffs costing £3500, there will be much head scratching
before the biggest event of the season, the Tour
of Flanders (9th and 10th September).
Many Thanks
Mark II Motorsport
would like to thank
their sponsors: - Bluecol Brands, TotalFina, SFL
ltd, GP Engineering and Springwood Aviation Services.
Special thanks to DOME and RallyGallery.com
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