Mull Rally 2021

After a 2 year gap with no rally in 2020 due to Covid 19 the time was finally here for our trip to the Mull Rally 2021.

Plenty of miles were done on the Mull roads over the first few days in the hire car for our recce, and with the check of our notes complete we had a few days off before the start.

We were asked to scrutineer early on the Thursday night which was lucky as we had a problem with the electrical master switch! So back to the digs to sort out and after some hours we managed to get right!

Scrutineering done it was time to get ready for stage 1 on Friday night. the first two stages were very wet and took some time for both of us to blow of the cobwebs of not competing for so long. but we made it to service for a buttie and car check.

The last stages went better and and started to flow although the roads were starting to dry in the wind on the far side of the island and out wets started to go off towards the end. The last stage also saw the gearbox getting very hot and stiff, hopefully not a problem. but we made it to the end of leg one.

With nothing obviously wrong with the gearbox we started the daylight stages but on the first Scridan stage it stuck in 4th gear. After a fight to get it out we drove the rest of the stage just using 3rd to 5th.

We carried on round the first loop of 3 stages at the top of the island not dropping to much time with the gearbox but then out of the blue the engine oil pressure light came on right on the flying finish of the second running of the Mishnish Lochs stage, we coasted to a stop and found the dry sump pump belt had snapped. With a spare in the car we then found the pump would not turn so rather than risk anymore damage to the engine we retired.

A pity really as we were just starting to find our rhythm again and everything felt good! Oh well time to start planning for next year!

About Paul.G

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