Enduro Weekend

Ooo what a weekend we had! Me, Dad & Steve helped out on the SW Audi Enduro over the weekend and now we’re totally shattered. Our weekend started on Thursday night when I had to drop Dad down to Ivybridge to pick up the van that was basically to be our home for the next couple of days.

Friday morning Steve arrived and we loaded the van up with everything we needed and set off to Newton Abbot Racecourse which was the start venue for the event. Well, I say we took everything we needed – everything EXCEPT the folder that had all the information in it as to which stages we were looking after & what we needed to pick up each time……oops! So Dad kicked me & Steve out and he went back to Exeter to pick up said folder – a great start to the weekend! Since we were picking up at the first stage at Seale Hayne we headed over there once we had signed on and got to watch all the cars through the first section of the selectif. Then our weekend started in earnest; we spent the rest of the day chasing ass (except at Marley Head where we got there before the competitors & managed to take some photos) We got a break at Badgers Holt for food (paid for by the motor club and very nice) and a rearrange of the back of the van. We eventually made it into the Novatel at about midnight only to be told that there had been a mix up in the booking and we only had a single room…between three of us…yup coz that’s going to work. Eventually Roger (who organised the rally) managed to sort it out and we got a room that would fit us all.

Saturday morning started with me grouchy as hell since I had NO sleep Friday night. Dad and Steve had spent god knows how many hours in the bar & rolled into the room at about 3am pissed as farts and then proceeded to execute a light show trying to get the right lights on then all off again! Following that Steve (who was on the sofa bed) fell into a coma-like sleep and was snoring like an angry warthog. Now I can sleep through most things (bagpipes being one of those things!) but I cannot get to sleep when people are snoring. So basically I lay there, knackered and dreading the morning, totally unable to get to sleep. Me and Dad were up by 7 and down to a king of breakfasts, leaving snoring-beauty, well, snoring! Eventually Steve surfaced and we headed back out in the general direction of Holsworthy. We weren’t hanging around but it was looking increasingly unlikely we would make it down to Portreath Airfield to meet Alan at the arranged time but when we tried calling him to tell him we were running behind we got no answer so basically we just floored it (out van proved itself worthy since it really shifted!) When we got to Portreath there was a slight problem – Alan hadn’t turned up & no-one had heard from him or been able to get hold of him. Oh f……dear! We (with the guidance of Andy armed with the competitors road book) started laying out the course as best we could & kept our fingers crossed that Alan would turn up soon. Thankfully he arrived just as we were nearly finished (the other ‘putting out’ van had died so Alan had had to tranship all his stuff & set up his selectifs before he got to us!) & since there had actually been a quite serious accident involving a competitors car, none of the competitors realised that we had been skimming by the seat of our pants to get the selectif set up! We went for dinner and then just sat around watching it get dark & waiting for it to be finished so we could pick up & fk off!! It was looking likely to be a VERY long night but thanks to some good thinking on the part of Alan & Mrs Alan (who, you may have guessed, I cannot remember the name of!) with regard the road sections and a God send in the form of Dobbin going through the final wood section and taking down all the tape & stacking the cones we managed to get back to the hotel by 12.30. However our night didn’t end there…

Early on on Saturday we were in a wood section picking everything up & I was trying to get a bit of tape from round a tree when I fell in a ditch. Now this sounds quite funny (and in many ways was!) but I totally fked my left knee as well as filling my hands with splinters of bramble & cutting my arms to bits. This kind of made me a dead weight in the van for the rest of the day since I couldn’t keep jumping in & out picking stuff up (well more to the point I couldn’t walk once I was out but same difference!) Thing is, when we got back to the hotel I was in so much pain I wanted to crawl into a corner & die. I wasn’t comfortable sitting, standing, walking, lying down. Generally not good! So basically having just got back to the hotel & got changed Dad then offered to drop me home. I felt really guilty but there was no way I could have stuck a night in the hotel, in major pain & with no sleep. I got very little sleep at home but at least I wasn’t disturbing anyone else.

Well apart from the agonising knee & cut up/splinter ridden hands I had a really good time. It was knackering & a big commitment but I really enjoyed it. So, well done to everyone who competed & a BIG well done to all the organisers who worked their backsides off making sure it would all run. Thanks for letting us be a part of it all!

PS - there are photos to add but I will have to do that from the other computer!