MARTYN O'CONNOR & Co Heating Engineers & Plumbers

Tirowen LLangoedmor Cardigan SA43 2LB Tel 01239 613423

RALLY PAGE Welcome to my rally page

NEW .....Teifi Valley Motor Club Website - click logo

This is all a bit out of date.... Sorry but I've had loads of computer problems over the last few months. All sorted now I hope so I'll bring things up to date very soon. Come back!

Martyn

RALI BRO PRESELI & RALI BRO TEIFI RESULTS - In TVMC section - click TVMC logo

NEXT EVENT - Quiet on the road rally scene until the Morswyn Williams on 23rd September. We may do the Meirion if we can pack enough sandwiches for the long journey!! May also do the stage rally in Talbeny on 5th September also. Need to get the car sorted soon though.

New engine runs well but has a bad oil leak from somewhere around the oil filter housing. Spent all day Saturday fitting new sump gaskets and scratching heads but still cant find where its coming from. Engine out again i fear!

We still have two gearboxes spread all over the garage as we are trying to rebuild one good one from them. Abandoned the project before the Valley but need to get them sorted before we forget where all the bits go!

Rally Reports

Valley Services 14th August 2004- Looked like a great event - pity we didn't see more of it!! Total disaster for us but well done to John Bach and Neil on their 1st place - got there at last John!

Got to the 1st PC and found that we had 2 second half PC/RC cards but none for the first half! (yes I know - we should have checked at the start). Dropped about 4 mins explaining to each PC control why they couldn't sign where they wanted to and persuading them to sign elsewhere on the wrong card.

Got held up on a tight white behind large badger that insisted on running down the middle of the track for ages.

Then the exhaust started to get noisy so we stopped and found the doughnut washer between the manifold and the front pipe had broken up. Nothing for it but to call it a day and go home early. Still we got further than last year!!

BARCUD RALLY (Tregarron) 31st July 2004 - Really good event this year. Great roads, tight timing and mostly on tarmac. We were a bit off the pace this time and Pete was ill. Came 6th o/a and got the Std Prod award again. Congrats to Shokey who was flying all night! Engine sounding a bit rough and gearbox jumping out of 2nd and selecting wrong gears so we were pleased to get to the finish. More work this week now as we're changing the engine and rebuilding the gearbox. Hope to get it finished in time for the Valley.

MEL HARRIS ( Ammanford) 12th June 2004. - Good run with no problems gave us 1st O/A for the second year running. Good event except for non compliant code boards. Letters in dried out marker pen on green squares is not really on! We misssed one but they scrubbed the penalty at the finish.

Classic Tracks (Llandyssul) 30th May 2004. Daytime road rally on about 50 miles of classic farm tracks. Excellent event - well done Llandyssul MC! It was great to do all these tracks in the daylight. Did this with Dyfan Davies as Pete was driving in the old black Astra with Jo his wife navigating. They did really well, were leading at petrol but car problems dropped them to 6th at the finish - I'd better watch out!! Dyfan and I had a reasonable run and ended up 2nd. No reall problems except for thick dust in places which slowed us quite a bit.

NIGHT OWL (Aberystwyth) 24th April 2004. - Home in bed early again!! Engine started cutting out about 1 Mile into the 1st selective and rapidly got worse. We stopped and found a wire chafed through and shorting the ignition. Wrapped a piece of foam from the cage around it but had dropped about 6mins.

Went ok then for quite a while until unusually Pete was sick. We carried on as he gets better very quickly on these rare occasions, but not this time. By now he was a danger to marshalls so we decided to call it a day shortly before petrol and went home in a very smelly car.

What we did of the event was very good, enjoyed the 'ski run', good job it was down hill! and lots of tricky twisty not as map roads. Good event. Hope to do better next year

Rali Bro Teifi 27/28th March 2004- Full results - click TVMC logo Joint Clerk of the Course with Pete on this one. Think it went well as we have recieved several nice messages from competitors.

Two crews battled for the lead from the very first selective to the last with Kevin Jones/Dilwyn John emerging victors by only 2 seconds from Hefin George/Daniel Thomas. Hefin and Dilwyn won the rally together in 2002, so their new pairings this year appear to be paying off.

Many of the best crews in wales competed and the early sections saw the retirement of several - Toby Adam/Byron Jones retired on the first section with a broken diff. Daniel Jones/Dorian Evans withdrew after the first section with oiled up spark plugs. Arwyn Thomas/Patrick Walsh also failed to make the end of the first section after putting a hole in the sump of their Escort.
Huw Myfyr/Gwawr Hughes went out before Petrol with alternator failure.
Tony Davies/Darren Garrod had the fuel pump fail very near the end but managed to get going again after dropping a large amount of time.

Last years winners Ceri Richards/Aled Jones made an error on timing and ended up running ahead of their scheduled time, resulting in a load of fails.

Rali Bro Caron 14th Feb. 2004. - Excellent event, well organised, great roads, correctly placed controls and code boards. Finished 2nd O/A & 1st in Class1. - two happy boys! (nice trophies too). Well done Dorian and Eril. The whole event had no whites yet still we dropped 6:44. The roads were extremely slippery in places and covered with a film of mud when you were least expecting it. I think we were a bit off the pace in the first half but got it more together in the second. Gareth 'Gog' Jones and Carl Williamson won by a mile (3Min) so congrats to them and it's nice to see Carl back in action in the lanes.

West Wales Rally Spares Christmas Stages 2003 Pembrey Dec 28th. - Great fun. The only stage event we've done this year. Dropped in the 4.2 SC box for this one and fought with a tight LSD for the 1st time!! 1st stage was an adventure with a spin on the go-kart track In Car Video , water in the electrics resulting in 3 cylinders, and then broke a CV joint 2/3 way round. The LSD got us to the finish and we were able to fit a spare shaft. Loads of WD40 and a bag around the distributor sorted out the misfire and the rest of the day went OK. The stages were very very slippery and we stayed on forest tyres all day! Finished 2nd in Class & 15th O/A so were very pleased.

Think we'll try and do the Talbenny stages later in the year as we had such a good time in Pembrey. Hope it won't clash with any of the Road rallies in the club championship.

Holrus 22/23 November- Well that was an experience! Epynt is a great place, must do it again. Good event was somewhat different to what we're used to. Short 2 Min sections and LOTS of code boards. Unfortunately we missed one and got a 5 min penalty. Ended up 12th o/a which we are quite happy with for our first time. Spent some time lost in the woods and there was some unfortunate confusion regarding waiting at the board at regularity start controls as course cars had told controls 'wait at board' and Wayne said go in at the drivers briefing. Congrats to Gerwyn and Ceri on another win and to Martin Leonard and Stuart Cardell for their second place on tarmac tyres. Huel Thomas's results service was great as usual

Congrats too to Ceri Richards and Aled Jones from TVMC who secured the club championship with their 22nd place. They only had to finish to beat us so were like a couple of farts all night!!

Had an interesting puncture - a bullet casing through the tread!!!

Dafydd Richards Memorial Rali Dyffryn Aeron 15/16 November - Unfortunately unable to start as wife came home from hospital on Friday (4 days earlier than expected) Usually an excellent event - ended up in a ditch and bent the steering so went home early last year.

Malki 26/27 October- Not Good!! - went off within 500M of the start in the 'Super special' and lost +6Mins on a 1Min section!!. Got really peed off crashing through 3 1/2 miles of 6" deep huge potholes - this does not test any crew's skill, it just rewards people with no mechanical sympathy - ended up with 3 bent wheels & one shredded tyre. Had hard time finding slots on the mountain & code boards hidden behind posts, stuck in undergrowth, facing the wrong way and not preceded by a control board as required by Welsh Association regs. I don't know what the competitive mileage was but there were miles of transport sections that seemed to go on forever. No official results yet but I hear that we were 26th. Don't think we'll be going back! In Car Potholes Video

Cilwendeg 19/20/21 September - In Car Video What a cracking event!! I know it's my club that runs it but all the team deserve a huge cheer. Loads of drop time sections, Controls spot on, Excellent arrowing in the whites and farmyards so you always knew where to go, Fast results, and a great venue - The Castle Malgwyn Hotel. When top crews drop14/15 Min on the first night you know it's one hell of an event!

But best of all we came 2nd o/a & 1st in Class1. Congrats to Daniel Jones and Owen Dodd who were off like rockets and deserved the win.

We had an interesting 1st night and Pete was heard to say that he'd never had to get out and push so many times!! On the second competitive section we had to take drastic action to avoiding joining Toby who was wedged on a gatepost, Byron had waved us down but wet grass seems to speed you up upon application of the brakes!!. We veered off down the sloping field and had to inch back the way we came to get up the slope and rejoin the track at the top - lost 40/50 sec's.

Next tight bit met 2 speccies coming the other way and had to wait in gateway for them to pass, 1/2 spin at the next slot 90R, Stuck trying to get up slope out of white at next give way, then stuck on muddy slope in farmyard until speccies came to push - lost about 1:30. Swore a lot. The rest of Friday night went OK with no further dramas and we were very surprised and pleased to be 3rd at the end of the night.

Saturday night also went without any great problems except for the last tight section when we got stuck behind Gareth Jones and Dave Pitchford who had had a problem and shot past us into the RITC just before we started so we were held up at each control through the section - that's the way it goes! Anyway, the time lost didn't make any difference to the final result. Very interesting white through the cow tunnel!! - see In Car Video

Valley Services road rally 16/17August - - We had a very short rally - 1Min 38Seconds exactly. That was from RS1 to the first handbrake right triangle before PC1 where the N/S CV joint went bang and chucked out its ball bearings! Never mind - the car's nice and clean, the petrol tank's full and the tyres are quite new!!

Luckily Pete's wife Jo was only a mile or so away spectating so we didn't have to wait too long for the tow home. Thanks Jo. Thanks also to the kind man in the black Maverick who towed us the first couple of miles to meet up with Jo. This is the second time a CV joint has gone so perhaps some heavy duty ones are required before the Cilwendeg. This non finish will not help our position in the TVMC championship, but we'll have to wait and see how the other TVMC crews got on.

Barcud Road Rally 2/3 August (Tregarron) - Cleaned everything along with 10 other crews due to ridiculously slack timing. Places decided on engine c.c. so ended up 11th O/a. We did get the Standard production award so not all was lost! . Shame about the timing as the rest of the event was OK. Great forest section and lots of good roads. A few controls were missing but the others were correctly positioned and operated efficiently. Several crews turned up without marshals which gave the organisers a few headaches but they managed to rearrange things at the last moment and no one was turned away.

Mel Harris 28/29th June (Ammanford) 1st time we've done this event and were delighted to get 1st overall. We tied on penalties with John (MK1) Thomas & Patrick Walsh but were given the win on the furthest clean basis. We both dropped 23seconds at ITC5 then we dropped 1second at TC6 whereas they dropped 2 sec's. Shame for John and Patrick as it was obviously a marshals finger' penalty as we were both waiting at the board having cleaned the section from ITC5 to TC6.

The two other drop time sections in the second half were both scrubbed, one due to a PR problem and the other due to Car1 blocking the track having drowned out in an unmarked ford. We managed to get past by climbing the bank and scraping the side (sorry Ceri) but no one else got by and so had to wait until Ceri got the Escort fired up some 10 Min's later.

Anyway it was an enjoyable event with some very twisty narrow lanes, lots of 'not as map' bends and most controls spot on plot. Results came along quickly and the breakfast was good. We hope to do it again next year.

26/27 April - Night Owl Rally Aberystwyth - Home to bed early as the exhaust snapped off just before Petrol. The break was tight to the front box and repair impossible. It wasn't going that well anyway as we had a detour into a field before the farmyard on an early white and an overshoot in Cnwc y Barcud (yes that one) which cost us around a minute and a half. Car now has nice new Janspeed system ready for the next outing.

Background stuff

I've always been interested in Motor Sports, having been taken by my father to races at Llandough airfield near Cardiff from an early age. Later to the woods to see Eric Carlson & Ove Anderson in the Saabs, progressing to Timo Makinen, Roger Clark etc. & on to today's heroes. Did a few road rallies in the '60's navigating with Aberystwyth Motor club while too young to drive, but copious amounts of puke soon stopped that! Followed almost every RAC rally around the country for years and now end up as Safety Officer for Trawscoed stage on the Rally GB for the past three years.

Peter Collins and I did some Road Rallies in the early eighties (some pics below) but work commitments prevented any more until the late 90's when I thought we'd better have another shot at it. Pete in the meantime had continued navigating and getting top10 placings.

We did ok in Pete's 1800 Astra, (kindly donated at short notice) with several top 10 placings, a win on the '98 Barcud Rally and 5th O/A on the '97 Cilwendeg, 4th on the '99 Bro Caron, 5th on the '99 Night Owl and 1st Std Prod on all of them.

1999 saw the purchase of the current car as it seemed that a bit more 'grunt' was needed, and we were rewarded with 1st O/A on the '99 Cilwendeg.

We do a couple of tarmac stage rallies a year, the K&N Filters in Pembrey and The Pendine stages. This year's K & N went well in the floods and we managed 15th O/A

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Here are some Photos taken since 1983

The Black Astra GTE was Peter Collins shopping car donated after we (or was it me?) stuffed our Yellow Astra into a Large tree on the first time out after a re spray and much fettling - and - oh yea - it was on a treasure hunt! We keep it as a spare. It's an 1800 8V with 130K miles!

The Red Astra is our current vehicle and is a 16V 2000 GTE in standard production trim.

UGLY MUGS CLICK THE IMAGE FOR A BIGGER PICTURE

AUTOTESTS ( on gravel - Welsh version!)

ROAD RALLIES

BRO CARON 2000

CILWENDEG

EAGLE Road(?) Rally in Sweet Lamb

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STAGE RALLIES

K & N Stages, Pembrey 2001 (thanks to Aled Richards)

IN CAR VIDEO (If you've got the patience to wait for it to load!)

Rali Bro Teifi 2004 Dugoed Farm Click Here - 2.8Mb Night

West Wales Rally Spares Christmas Stages 2003(stage rally at Pembrey)

Spin on Go Kart Track Click Here - 27Secs 750Kb Daylight

Note - Video is quite dark - increase Brightness a bit and Saturation up full in Windows Media player. Quality is ok at 100%. If anyone knows how to improve it without huge file sizes please e-mail me.

Malki Potholes (just a few) - Click Here - 1.12Mb - see note above

Cilwendeg 2003 - Through the cow tunnel - CLICK HERE - 3.7Mb - See note above re Media player settings

K&N Filters Dec. 2002 (stage rally at Pembrey) - Wet Wet Wet - Click Here - 5.1Mb - (Daylight) 1/2 of Stage6

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