VK Derbyshire road rally

Road Rally Dave · VK Derbyshire road rally

After their success on the Chris Pringle road rally, John was navigating for Dave "Darkie" Lewis in the BMW Coupe on last Saturday's VK Derbyshire road rally.
I went to the start with Ryan where we chatted with all the usual suspects and managed to get an interesting hairpin location to spectate on (the event was fully manned with marshals)

The white Pug 206 was the eventually winner (Guy Robinson / Sam Collis)

Road Rally Dave

The crews went for a spin around Steve Perez's (Mr VK) country estate and then started the rally proper with it's usual combination of tight lanes and rough whites (tracks).
We were watching on a nice bit of private road where competitors could use a bit of handbrake to get them round a tight downhill hairpin right (and we could stand safely behind a dry-stone wall !).
The event had a full 55 car entry with a wide range of all types of road rally car.

We thought that Darkie & John were very neat with no massive slide (unlike some crews), but there was a reason ..........

Road Rally Dave

After we had watched everyone through, Ryan & I headed for home. But not too many miles later as we drove through the outskirts of Matlock, Ryan shouted that he could see Darkie's BMW in a car park. So we turned round and sure enough found that a bit of servicing was required.

So Ryan jumped in to see what the problem was, but it was fairly obvious when we looked at the nearside rear.

Which was caused by a broken rear shocker top mount - which also caused the rear tyre to burst.

So they retired early from what is always a bit of a car breaking event (and Ryan & I headed home to bed)

Road Rally Dave

Apparently they hit a hay bale really hard in Mr Perez's garden - Darkie thought that he must have caved-in the offside rear quarter, but they got away with no damage at all.
Think that the link below is a photo just before the hit (they are turning left on full opposite lock)

http://www.mandh-photography.co.uk/events/vk2009/vk09-.130.htm

club sec

Bit of bad luck that, but a very common failure on that model beemer, chris langan did the same on a 12 car in his a few years back. Disappointing result, but fixable and no injuries and that's what counts.

Road Rally Dave

The BM has rose jointed solid top mounts (as opposed to standard rubber mounts) on the rear shocks, but they still managed to break !