Phils guide to Wales Rally GB – Leg two

LEG 2 -Saturday 1st December, 2007

SS7: Crychan 1 (19.47kms). Start: 09.38
Leg 2 is exactly the same as last years, beginning with a classic Welsh forest stage. There are a couple of bad places just off the ranges with 1 very tricky junction 2.5 Kms from the start where we slipped off and got stuck last year!. Then there is a very fast section – we’re in sixth gear for two and a half miles – into an unseen junction, which a lot of people overshoot. Then it’s very narrow, down to a place the Scandinavians call – Orange Road’ because of the colour of the pine needles. Dry or wet, it’s very slippery – the last two miles you have to be so careful. Our team-mate Chris Atkinson spun his Subaru Impreza down a bank in this stage in -05 and retired from the leg, so it’s a stage that can really bite back.

SS8: Epynt 1 (13.76kms). Start: 10.21
There are some very long downhill adverse-camber corners near the start, and a lot of cars went off there last year. There is a new section of road up on the Mynydd Epynt area, which has been built by the Military of Defence as a link road to avoid the live firing range which we used last year for the first time where there is a spectacular new jump, appropriated named Paras Jump. It’s really odd up on the Sennybridge Training Area, because it’s the only place on the rally where there are no trees. It’s also one of the highest places on the rally, so could be foggy. Our other ’05 team-mates, Stephane Sarrazin/Denis Giraudet, slid into a bank and retired from the leg on this stage! It is also a stage where militart debris can also play apart and not unusual to have a puncture with a brass shell piercing through the tyre!

SS9: Halfway 1 (18.37). Start: 10.54
The first half of this stage is in a forest and the second is up on the ranges. There is a very tight hairpin left junction near the start, then it goes downhill to a right hander over a bridge. Then there are a couple of jumps in the middle of the wood and you climb up through some open hairpin bends through a quarry and then it’s very fast all the way up to Dixies Corner. Dixies is a great place to watch because you can see so much. It looks a simple section of road, but as everybody knows it’s not and it catches a lot of people out. We come out of Halfway forest and over a crest, which is on the asphalt junction of Dixies. There is huge jump there and we fly high onto a new gravel road, which runs parallel to the old asphalt road. It looks like drivers throw caution to the wind, but there is actually a big hole on the inside which a lot of people went into last year and did a lot of damage, so you have to be careful and take the right line. The gravel road itself is wide and flowing, yet it’s also one of those bits of road where you have to be very careful and really think about what you’re doing. All that section, from Dixies junction and on for about a mile after it, is quite tricky and complicated for the driver, so anywhere along there is extremely good viewing. After the asphalt the last five miles are absolutely flat out with very long corners and crests!

SS10: Crychan 2 (19.47kms). Start: 14.45
After service at the Swansea Rally Centre at Felindre, we’ll be straight back into Crychan to do the loop of three stages again. Road conditions, changeable weather and your position in the rally can make the afternoon stages completely different to the morning, even though you’re following our own wheel tracks.

SS11: Epynt 2 (13.76kms). Start: 15.28
The re-run of Epynt is probably the stage that will cut up the most and be extra difficult the second time through. The ruts can lift the car off line and onto the slippy stuff on the outside of corners and then it can become quite a problem.

SS12: Halfway 2 (18.37kms). Start: 16.22
Another difficult stage the second time through especially this year as it will be run in the dark! The section past Dixies corner being the most difficult in wide open areas and not easy to read the road even in the daylight!. We’re nearly always slower through Halfway the second time, purely because the conditions are trickier.

SS13: Cardiff Stage (1.1kms). Start: 19.00
There was a fantastic atmosphere in the Millennium Stadium last year when we jumped in & landed on what is normally the pitch and power-slid our away around the figure of eight course in front of 22,000 spectators. With the roof closed to keep out the December night chill, it’s the only in-door stage in the entire FIA World Rally Championship and for a Welshman like me to compete on a rally inside one of the world’s best sporting arenas, in the centre of Cardiff – well, it doesn’t get any better than that. It’s not the longest stage on the event, but without a doubt it’s the most fun and hopefully we’ll be out to put on a great show as last year we drove the stage with a broken steering rack!.