The lead up to the Long Valley event saw some spectacular down pours. At the driver briefing the Clerk of the Course warned us the site was horrible and we’d need a stock of wiper motors and brake pads to get through the event. Heavy overnight rain had submerged a water-logged site further under water making a difficult site even more testing. Following the driver briefing we were keen to get going and quickly buckled up and got underway early in the first wave.

Run 1
Part way round the course the Vitara started to misfire. At first I put this down to the incredible amount of water on the course finding its way into the distributor but as we pushed on I noticed the rev-counter wasn’t working. Within a couple of corners the car came to a complete stop.  We jumped out to investigate but couldn’t find anything obviously wrong. After a few attempts ant restarting the engine it fired up again so we jumped back in and pressed on.

After a few more corners we found ourselves stopped again and in a pretty dodgy spot, just after a mini-jump in the loose sand on the entrance to a sweeping corner. I really wasn’t happy about where we were stopped but there we no marshals in sight. A couple of cars passed quite close but the sight of Neville coming sideways towards us over the rise made me think we really needed to get the car off the course.

After a bit of running around we found a Marshal and were towed off the course. We decided to cut our losses and limp for the pits, taking a maximum. In hindsight we should of pushed on as the maximum was set quite high and we could of probably notched up a complete run. As it turns out problems on the course led to the lap being modified and averaged anyway.

When we got back to the pits a bit of investigation revealed the source of the problem, the coil pack had worked loose and wasn’t grounding, interrupting the ignition. A quick tighten and we were running again.

Run 2
We lost no time in getting back out on the course. We managed a complete run, getting to see all of the site. I was surprised by the superb fast wide open sections over sand through sweeping corners, and also amazed at just how wet it was. At one point on the run the front of the car felt so vague and the steering wheel seemed to have so little to do with the direction of travel I stopped to check steering. I was sure we either had a puncture or the box or linkage was loose. Looking at the car it was just the tyres were completely clogged, not even the open diamond tread could stay clear of the claggy wet sand. After a quick look over we were soon back underway but within about 100 metres I realised I hadn’t clipped the bonnet closed properly so had to stop again!

Run 3
At one point on what felt like the ‘back’ of the site (but to be honest I had no idea where we actually where relative to the pits) there was what would have been a long grass section with flooded areas and lots of standing water. First time in the year I felt the Vitara was really struggling for power. With tyres bogged down in the mud we struggled to accelerate to any kind of decent speed. Jason in number 6 had been catching us gradually over the last few corners and finally passed us on this section with a massive grin and a wave covering us in water as we struggled on through.

Run 4
We had a lucky escape on run 4 as we clipped a concrete block that had emerged from the undergrowth, fortunately there was no damage despite the bang. Photographic Memories were out in force to record our efforts at Long Valley so I pushed harder over the jumps section and managed to get ‘air’ a few times – although the return to earth in the Vitara wasn’t too pleasant!

We overtook Rhino Ray who appeared to be struggling a little over half way round the route, but towards the end of the run the exhaust manifold started to blow again. Some of the corners were already ‘washboarding’ badly with acceleration and braking bumps. This was giving the transmission mounts and in turn the exhaust manifold to down tubes joint a really hard time.

Run 5
By the fifth run I was starting to settle in to it and had learnt most of the course. We started to up the pace but the exhaust blow was rapidly getting worse. I only put this down to the sealant on the joint breaking up, so you can imagine my surprise when about half a mile from the end the exhaust started to roar. The joint had obviously failed, and failed in a big way. We moved to the side of the course and stopped to have a look. A quick look was all we needed. The exhaust down tubes had completely separated from the manifold, and a quick feel revealed why, one stud was missing and 2 had snapped off in the casting. As we were looking at the car we were ‘passed’ by a Land Rover but he passed so close he actually touched the Vitara, skimming off the front wing. As he shot passed part of the Land Rover caught the edge of the Vitara wrap-round grill, snapping it in half! I wasn’t impressed. Things weren’t looking good. We limped back to the pits, taking another maximum.

Once we were back at we had a closer look at the damage. The two snapped studs had broken off flush and there was no way we could get to drill them out in situ but we did have the possibility to re-attach the down tubes by replacing the missing stud. It was our thoughts we could then strap or wire-up the down tubes to keep them in place. This would not be any where near perfect but it would reduce the noise to a level where we would be allowed to continue competing. But it was not to be. The grill breaking land rover owner had a large bag of bolts but none we could find would fit the threaded hole in the manifold – we even took a bolt out of the diff housing that we thought would be the right thread but even this didn’t fit.

With no way of reattaching the exhaust we could not continue. The scrutineer for the day had already been over to see us and told us that he would need to check the car before we went back out as it was too noisy as it was. So that was that. I walked to the control caravan and respectfully retired.

Retrospective

Well, Long Valley didn’t really go to plan. Recording our second DNF of the year was a major disappointment. I was really counting on a finish and a good one at that to help secure our place in class A and overall in the championship…. but that’s not the way it was meant to be.

Despite the warnings from the Clerk of the Course before we started about the terrain I think Long Valley is a fantastic site. It has a great mixture of twisty technical wooded sections very similar to Slab Common but unlike Slab it also has good open straights in between them making for a very enjoyable lap with good mileage.

Long Valley, combined with five previous events have taken their toll on the exhaust manifold. The gasket joint between the  manifold and down-tubes has opened up on a couple of recent events but it wasn’t until this breakage at Long Valley that I have really considered the stress it is under.

Following the breakage I have looked at the transmission mountings. Despite the improved engine mounts the soft, flexible gearbox mountings allow considerable movement. It appears the rear propshaft pushing on the gearbox is causing a the whole transmission to 'wag' stressing and flexing the exhaust joint. The only real way to prevent future breakages is going to be to improve the rear / lower gearbox mounting. This is something that will be investigated over the winter.

Next month will see the final event of the season with a return to the Sidbury Hill site near Tidworth in Wiltshire. Looking at the current Championship standings barring near disaster Jason Nichol should take 1st place but the next 8 or 10 places are almost anyone’s guess.

Despite not finishing at long Valley we still have an 80 point lead over Ray Edwards in Class A, so we really need to finish the event. Our first visit there for round 1 in March saw us only attempt 5 of 10 runs and only complete 3 of them. Hopefully this wont be repeated in November!