Printmatters Stages

This was the team’s 3rd ever event with the X2B Rally Fiesta. The Printmatters Promenade Stages took place on closed Public roads on the North Coast of the Wirral Peninsula, at New Brighton. This unique tarmac event takes place each year along the New Brighton Promenade, adjacent to the Irish Sea. This means that it isn’t rare for waves to crash over the sea wall, and land on the event, as was experienced this year.

The team arrived early to set up in the service area, a struggle for many competitors due to the horrific storm that had hit the Whole of the country the day before, flooding many areas including the motorway leading to the event. Thankfully, overnight, the rain had been blown away, leaving the event with a slightly damp surface, with some areas of standing waters. The makeup of the public roads however, proved to defy the wet areas, providing a lot of grip throughout the day.

The layout of the stages seemed to suit the car, with us being as fast if not faster as many of the higher class cars around the corners. Unfortunately, with a lack of power, we were unable to compete on the straight sections. The straight sections were broken up with chicanes made from barrels and metal fences, which turned out to be quite a troublesome area for the team. Stage 1, we managed to clip one of the barrels in the last chicane of the stage, losing the left wing mirror. Stage 2, a rerun of the same layout, ended in us carrying too much speed into the chicane and locking up. As a result, we ended up hitting the final barrel again, but with much more force, throwing the car onto the central reservation.

Fearing the worst, we chugged back to the service area, to see that we had damaged the front left wing, broken the front bumper, and we thought we may have damaged the wheel as well. After a rapid frustrating service, and some help from a friend/marshal, we got the car out for the next stage, looking a bit worse for wear. The rest of the event we were wary about the chicanes, but suffered no more problems from them.

Then came stage 8, which proved to be our downfall. As soon as we started the stage, the engine cut out, and we had to push the car out of the way of the others behind us. We pushed the car to service, to try and rectify the problem, which thanks to the mechanical skills of Barney, proved successful. Unfortunately, as we hadn’t finished stage 8, we were classed as Retired. A heartbreaking moment for us all, considering the hard work that the team has put into the car and its running. The team were allowed to continue the event, but to be excluded from the results at the end. The last 2 stages were merely for fun, go out and enjoy ourselves.

The last stage of the day, the car was running well, whilst we were putting on a bit of the show for the remaining spectators. Unfortunately though, after the last corner, the car cut out once more, mere yards from the finish line. A disappointing finish to what had proved to be an enjoyable rally. We now believe to have found the problem, and the team are all looking forward to the next event.

Procare Stages

This was the second event for the team, another single venue tarmac event held at 3 Sisters Race Track in Wigan. Upon arrival to the track, the heavens literally opened, flooding the track in places, before the first stage! The rain influenced our decision to change from our dry Tyres, to a set of road tyres, in the hope of finding more grip on the wet slippy surface. Unfortunately, this had the opposite affect, being the cause of a spin under braking on the first stage. This spin dropped us a lot of time, and left us at 57th position from that point.

The rest of the day was a case of trying to find grip in the ever changing wet conditions, and playing catch up with the rest of the field as a result of the spin. Since the previous event (Roskirk) the car had undergone a slight transformation with a harder and lower suspension setup, as well as a new gearbox. Unfortunately, the very wet conditions prevented us from experiencing much of an increase in performance, but we were not alone. The entire paddock, including the higher class cars, was struggling for grip exiting the corners, finding it difficult to put the power down successfully. As the rain continued, some family members saw fit to purchase an easy up for the team, protecting us from the conditions. A Greatly appreciated purchase (thank you)

The good news was that by looking at the results throughout the day, despite the spin on stage 1, we were slowly but surely catching the rest of the field. This spurred us on to try and find some more pace, pushing the car harder and harder on the latter stages. This final push proved to be a success, eventually finishing 39th out of a field of 60, and 10th in class out of 16 (with the exact same finishing time as our 9th in class competition). If it weren’t for the spin on stage 1, it would be interesting to see where we would have finished. That is testament however to the quality of the competition we were against. Overall, a result to be proud of yet again considering the spin and treacherous conditions.

Roskirk Stages

This was the first event for X2B motorsport and the first real test for the team and the X2B Rally Fiesta. The final results brought with them great satisfaction and happiness: Overall finishing in 27th position (out of 60 entrants) and 5th in class out of 11 entrants. In our Very First Event, the team managed to beat over half of the field!

Preparation began several weeks ago for this event: many hours had been spent working on the car first in preparation for the MSA Logbook, and secondly for the rally itself. Thankfully when it came to Scrutineering in the morning, all the work had paid off with the car sailing though without any problems at all.

The First two stages of the morning went very well, our times showing we were well up there with the rest of the field. The first real problem arose after stage two when we lifted the bonnet to discover the gearbox was covered in oil. First thoughts were that the gearbox was damaged as we had some problem with 2nd gear. This oil turned out to be nothing more than a leaky breather; this problem was soon resolved (the solution can be see in the gallery).

As the day progressed, problems were few and far between. We had a slight problem with the exhaust but again this was resolved very quickly and easily. We did however have a problem with the gearbox throughout the day but this didn't affect the performance of the vehicle to much. Due to very short service intervals, nothing could be done to amend the problem.

The day started out giving the car a shake down and simply finishing the event. It wasn't until stage 4 however that we were able to see our times: At this early point we were running in 35th position overall. From this point on it was very clear that we could get a very respectable position on our first event, it was simply a case of pushing enough but not making the mistakes that so many others had already done such as damaging the car or simply spinning off losing huge amounts of time.

After a few hairy moments on stage, a few choice words said off stage and a lot of hard work by every one in the X2B team, we came away with a result to be very proud of.