Matt Endean Rallying

Garage news...

2012-01-10T22:24:00.005Z

Three posts in one night !

Recently i have been working on getting my garage sorted. Its almost there now. Just got about a dozen or so boxes to unload / put in the loft / sort / take to the tip...... But with new lighting, shelfing, and tool boxes - i should be organised for at least a few days !

Sorting through all my tools, i never knew i had so many sockets - sad but true....

First bit of motorsport will hopefully be at Daytona Karting at Milton Keynes this week as a good way to celebrate getting yet another year older.

Final news for the night is that i'm on the search for a copy of Practical Performance Car, as the Dave Walker (of CCC & Emerald ECU fame) wrote about my rally car when i had it mapped at Emerald last year. Anyone got a copy ?

Longmoor

2012-01-10T22:15:00.001Z

In between the excesses of food and drink of christmas and new year a small stage rally at Longmoor camp is run, and provides a great day out to a) have a play and b) get away from all the festivities.

We (Suze driving the Micra) were entered and drove down early that morning, making good time to get there for 7.30am. Scrutineering was easy and at noise they wanted us to be louder (we only made 81dB !). Longmoor only gets used once a year, as it is an active MoD base so photo's are hard to come by. But this also means the roads are very slippery, the first two stages were just that very slippery. Suze did well to hold on to many slides and as the stages progressed we were improving in speed. By the 4th stage of the day the course was drying out and Suze was finding her feet with more speed and aggression behind the wheel.

However during lunch the rain came back, and so did the lack of grip. This lead to a moment on the last corner of stage 5 where we ran wide and hit a curb. It pushed the OSF wheel back into wheel arch. We limped across the finish line, but the damage was done.

Luckily we managed to bend the OSF wishbone back to almost where Nissan intended it to be, due to hard work of many people who helped out from the service park. This was helpful as we had driven the car to the event and needed to drive it back..... So a DNF to finish the year, which was annoying as Suze was really beginning to find her speed. Lets hope 2012 fairs better :)

Thanks to RallyOnline for the picture - see here for more http://www.rallygallery.com/2011_LOCO.aspx?Page=51

2011 Review

2012-01-10T22:01:00.002Z

Obviously taking the CMC Gymkhana Championship ranks as the rallying highlight, as does finishing 5th O/A on the Britvic.
Lows...... dropping from 4th to 9th o/a on the Bustard due to one marshal..... other events have always ended up feeling like a case of what if i.e the 20/20, Bustard, Bullnose come to mind errors on my part on the Bullnose cost us at least two places.... :(

The Rover has done well though, with class wins - although time (and my driving) is taking its toll. After 5 seasons of events - it does look a bit battered now ! But with the new Emerald ECU and a diet it seems to be going better than ever. Just need to re-build the front suspension atm.....

Thanks to my navs for their hard work, patience and telling me where to go.

Best events for me as a driver were Goodwood; a good battle for 4th in class and some very high speed driving, the Gaydon autotest and the last Gymkhana - i think it was the best i drove all year, that and the afternoon tests of the July 7Oaks autosolo when fighting hard for a class win.

As a nav Woodbridge stages sat with Suze on her first stage rally - a great first stage rally and the CSMA 12 car where we finished far higher than i expected!

Not sure what 2012 will hold events wise, a move to doing the local Autosolo championship, more navving for Suze on stages events in the Micra and a few other bits and pieces.

Quiet but busy times......

2011-12-17T18:27:00.001Z

Its been a bit quiet recently event wise since the 20/20 road rally.

Mostly due to spending time finally getting the garage in our new house sorted, as it was converted to a part study / part store by the house's previous owners. So there has been lots of removing walls, painting etc... and I still have shelves and lights to install before unpacking all of my garage stuff (read mostly horded junk....).

There is still one event left to do this year - where I am navving for Suze in the Micra on Longmoor Loco stages between Christmas and near year. Based at an active army training camp it is a great way to get out during the festive period and have some competitive motorsport fun.

However once the garage has been finished the Rover rally car will be one of the first things to be worked on in there - as the front suspension strut top mounts have collapsed and I suspect the ball joints in the lower wishbones may be worn too. So the front suspension will be stripped down to be re-built.

Update.....

2011-12-01T11:09:00.001Z

Well its been a busy few weeks, with three rallies and a busy time at work, which is my excuse for not updating the blog as often as I would have liked. So here is a bit of a catch-up.

After taking the Gymkhana championship at MoD Woodbridge, the next event was the Carfax stages being held at a new venue - RAF Benson. Again out in the Rover with my wife Suze on the maps, this time running in the Enduro Stage rally class.
The day dawned bright and sunny and the weather held all day with it being quite warm for the time of the year. This meant that the soft tyres i bought for the wet conditions soon had to be changed for my used mediums. These worked well and lasted just long enough on the front to get a finish.
We ended up 35th overall and 2nd in class, with Suze having done a great job on the maps - telling me where to go. The stages were very fast and great fun, with some very high speed cornering and some good battles catching cars and overtaking them - which is always good fun. Thanks to Suze's parents (Andrew & Alison) and Stephen for servicing and making our day much easier :)

The following weekend saw the Rover back out in action again this time on a 20/20 Road Rally in Sussex. This was being run by Matt Fowle who is a very experienced driver/navigator/organiser. He put on a very good event - with a good mix of slacker longer sections and very short and tight sections where we had to work very hard to make it into the control just on our minute. We had good fun, but managed to miss one board which gave us one fail, we only dropped 7 mins all night, but the damage was done due to a tough bit of nav which Lizzie (my nav) would have needed strong local knowledge to get right. We ended up 8th overall, but without the fail we would have been 3rd - as always rallying is full of what if's..... !

If you visit the gallery I will be updating it with pictures from all three recent events very shortly.

Gymkhana Result & Championship

2011-11-15T21:59:00.001Z

Last Sunday saw the forth and final Chelmsford MC Gymkhana of the year - back again at MoD Woodbridge.

Going into this round I was tying for the CMC Gymkhana Championship lead with Tony Clements. So it was going to be a tight fight for the championship. Each of us had to win our class to try and ensure our chances.

I was back out again with Lizzie Pope on the maps.

The day started well on some very slippery tests due to overnight mist/rain, with a high seeding (No. 8) we were cleaning the way for later runners. But that's the way it goes. At the end of the first loop of test I had a 3 second class lead, nothing in reality and all to play for.

The second loop of tests were different from the first ones and this meant it was a real test of the navs and although we had a few minor moments of 'where do we go now', it went well and the Yoko's were working well now on the drier surface, it also allowed the greater power from the Emerald ECU to show through.

At lunch I had about a 25 second class lead over James Newbold in his Corsa, however Tony Clements was lying 3rd in class so it was important to keep the momentum going.....

The last three tests went really well and we got in to a very good rhythm and set some good times including one 2nd fastest test time overall :)

At the end of the day I finished 45 seconds clear of James for the class win and 6th overall. Tony finished 2nd in class to Mark Andrews who was very close to taking the event win. So this meant that I had won the CMC Gymkhana championship :)
Suze (my Wife) was out double driving with her Dad in his Rover 214 in Class A1 and Suze did an excellent job to take the class win by over a minute - well done :)

See here for the event results

See here for the Championship points table

And here are some proof photo's from Andy Manston who was there snapping away during the day.

Coming out of the Buddleia

Having a cut on one of the final tests...

Free Power! & Battling Bushes....

2011-11-06T18:59:00.000Z

With the last of the Chelmsford MC Gymkhana's coming up next weekend. This weekend was spent prepping the car for a big push to try and take on Tony Clements in the challenge for the CMC Gymkhana Championship which we are currently both jointly leading after three rounds so far.

The first job was a late Friday afternoon trip to the Turner Brothers in St. Albans to collect my new front tyres - some part-worn Yokohama A021R's bought for a very good deal. Thanks to the Rover Centre http://www.roverofstalbans.co.uk/ guys for fitting them and other tyres & the tea ;)

Yesterday and today a lot of time was spent removing the sound proofing (tar like material) from under the rear seats and the drivers footwell. This is quite a dull and time consuming job, but one which is very useful as i removed over 4kgs of excess weight from the car. The navs footwell will have to weight as there is a lot of wiring and other bits to remove to do that side.

I also removed all the trim as gymkhana's don't require cars in my class to have trim, this increased the weight saving to ~7.5kgs

I also had a play with altering settings on the Emerald ECU, this was great fun and easy to do with the option to do 'live' updates to the ECU, and changes to different maps.
The maps are now set-up to :-

1.) ME Adjusted; Increased rev limit (6900RPM), Cooling Fans start temp reduced, increased idle speed (to cope with large current draw of spots etc...)
2.) Standard as per Rolling Road Emerald 'Dave Walker' Map
3.) Standard as per Rolling Road Emerald 'Dave Walker' Map, but with a much reduced cooling fan starting temp, in case of cooling system issues.

Today i worked on changing the front wishbone bushes and ARB drop-links, as these were worn and very worn (see pic) in some cases.
This was quite a battle at times to a) remove the bushes and b) to refit the wishbones as the new bushes were a little bit wider.
The new bushes were Superflex ones to reduce wheel movement.

The rest of the jobs involved fitting the appropriate wheels/tyres - one rear tyre which is on its ~12 event (gymkhana, sprint, autosolo) now! A full bolt check (front top mounts were a bit loose...) and finally spray painting the floorpan as all the gravel from the bullnose had removed all the paint from the sills!

Power !!!!!

2011-11-03T13:37:00.002Z

After a recent trip to Emerald I now have the Emerald ECU up and running on the rally car.

Before starting any work we did a power run to see what the car was making, and it showed a very healthy peak of 109bhp (flywheel). Not bad for a totally standard 1.4 K Series engine that has done more than 125k miles, 25k miles of that as a rally car !!!

Then after a lot of mapping and fiddling around, including having to clear/repair a sticking idle control valve. We got a very good new map. The new map gives a peak of 121.9bhp and a nice improvement in torque across the whole rev range.

The drive home from Watton, Norfolk was good fun and showed a real improvement in the smoothness of the torque and the top end power. Its good to know now we are competing on equal terms with the top crews.

Attached is a power plot of the before and after power runs (you have to ignore the spike near the top of the rev range caused by a wheel balance issue).

Dave Walker at Emerald did a great job of the mapping and worked hard to create a very smooth torque curve and get the best from the engine. See www.emeraldm3d.com for more.

Entries & Events

2011-10-31T22:33:00.002Z

Its all been a bit quiet recently with no events and a trip to Spain for a holiday and to spectate on the WRC Championship gave a good chance to drive many of the gravel and tarmac WRC stages :)

However November is shaping up to be a busier month for motorsport

First up is the last of this years Chelmsford MC Gymkhana's - these are a grass roots fun motorsport, with a good mixture of driving and skill tests giving a good competitive day out. Currently i am jointly leading the gymkhana championship against Tony 'TC' Clements in his Civic Type R. The championship is class based so i need to win or do very well in class to beat TC. I will have Lizzie Pope on the maps for this as Suze is double driving with her Dad on this event.

The entry list for the event can be found here

A week after this I will be out driving with Suze on the maps on the Carfax stages, run by Oxford MC. This see's the event returning to a new venue at RAF Benson. With an enduro class it will be good compare stage times to other similar cars.

The entry list for the event can be found here

There is also a 20/20 which i may be entering a week later and the Endurance Rally Championship Awards lunch to collect the 3rd overall driver trophy :)
So all in all a busy month, I had better get working on the Rover this weekend to get it ready for action !

Pictures

2011-10-09T18:36:00.000Z

I have updated the photo album, which you can link to on the side link on the right hand side of this page.

CSMA - 12 Car

2011-10-08T11:01:00.000Z

Another event saw me in the silly seat, on a CSMA 12 car rally, navving for Suze in the Micra fresh from its stage rally début a few weeks ago.

With lots of enduro crews making up the entrants and organisers it was a good start to the event.

The navigation was quite tough, as you weren't given the end control locations. So it was quite hard work, made even harder on one section by the fact that we had the latest edition map with different road colours to the navigation - that section was VERY tricky ! The rest of the nav worked, but you had to work hard to make it work, especially a herringbone which used a dual -carriageway....

Some good roads and good driving by Suze to make back the time lost by stopping to plot / work out where to go, made it a tough and challenging event.

At the finish i was sure that my lack of navving skills would have seen us near the back of the results. But we ended up a pleasing 3rd overall and 2nd in class (class TBC)

ERRC Championship - 3rd overall

2011-10-02T12:52:00.001Z

The provisional results for the 2011 Endurance Road Rally Championship are now out, see http://www.endurance-rallying.co.uk/drivers2011.html

At the end of the year we have finished up 3rd overall driver and Lizzie takes 3rd overall navigator.

This will be the second time i have taken 3rd overall in this national championship.

However with only three rounds this year, enduro rallying is in decline with falling entries and events being cancelled the formula doesn't seem to be looking to healthy. So currently I am reviewing what to do next year, with the thought to doing more stage rallying, and as time goes on and parts need replacing upgrading parts with will mean the car is not enduro legal.

Parts that could be changed are gearbox final drive, fitting the gearbox from a Rover 211 with a 4.2 diff, different exhaust system/manifold, brakes, etc....

Woodbridge Stages

2011-09-27T21:39:00.000Z

For the first time in over six years I was out navigating on a stage rally.

I was navving for Suze on her Stage Rally driving début on the Chelmsford MC Hutton Kitchens Woodbridge Stage rally - running at MoD Woodbridge.

We were out in Suze's Micra which is now in full stage-spec, running on Yoko A048R's.

As the day went on Suze increased the speed and commitment with improving stage times on every run.

The car ran well - apart from having to change the front brake pads at lunchtime as we had worn them down to the metal which meant they had started to melt the backing plates !

You can see where the caliper piston bent the backing plate as it melted .......

The rest of the day ran well, and apart from a a very worn NSF tyre at the end of the event. The car ran faultlessly which was handy as it had to be driven home again !

As you can see the tyre was a bit worn !!!!!

Also we ran an in car video during the event, which you can see here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vqy1_YMUpu0

Results etc....

2011-09-11T15:36:00.000Z

Lots of results etc.. to look at follow the links :-

Bullnose results here

Bullnose results and report in Motorsport News here

Endurance Road Rally Championship tables here

A bit of Bully......

2011-09-11T15:30:00.001Z

Starting out as car 8 with Lizzie Pope on the maps would normally be an ideal position, all the marshals are awake by then, but up high enough not to catch slower runners. However the tests on the Oxford MC Bullnose Rally had something else to take into account - road conditions.....

The tests on the Bullnose run on grassy & stubble fields - where the first few runners clear the path and dig out the grass to leave the gripper packed mud. So the first few tests were harder work than normal, plus i suspect i was a little a sleep on the first few tests - it had been a good while since the last endurance event.

Once we got going and in the flow the event settled down for us and we slowly started to climb our way up the leader board. We were down at 20th place at the lunch halt.

However my cone magnet has be re-energised and i got penalised for hitting 5 cones/arrows during the day tests - which added 150 seconds to the total time - as well as a few new marks on the nav's side of the car. This would end up costing us two places overall at the end.........

The Greendown tests were once again the best of the event (and the championship ?) with a mix of high speed tarmac lanes, stubble fields, grass and mud it has it all. At 10+ miles it was hard work in a hot rally car on a hot day. Our first run round we caught three cars and the second run we caught two cars losing a bit of time on both runs - a penalty of dropping down the road order to try and make the best of the road conditions.

By the end of the day route we were lying 9th overall, which was a good improvement from the start of the day. The night route was a very short and at times very slow (just 24miles at 28mph) jogularity - this places a big emphasis on the nav getting things right and balances up the teamwork for the final result. We had a good run and moved up one place to finish where we started in 8th overall and 5th in class.

This will be the last enduro rally for the year - as I'm not entering the Exmoor rally - so the championship points for me are now set ! Currently i am lying 3rd overall driver - but it all depends on what happens on the Exmoor Enduro.

Bullnose

2011-09-04T10:30:00.001Z

A quick post...

We finished were we started - 8th overall. We had a good run after a rather slow start due to the driver being slow and our road position favouring the lower seeded cars. At lunch we were 20th overall and we climbed our way from there. We had some good runs on Green down, but my cone magnet was on and this cost us a couple of places in the end....

Here is a pic of us from Green Down - thanks to father-in-law Andrew Bisping for the pic

7OaksMC Sprint - Lower Bumper Cam

2011-08-29T10:08:00.000Z

Bullnose Seeded Entry List

2011-08-29T10:05:00.000Z

The seeded entry list for the Bullnose Endurance Rally is out now, we (Lizzie 'Wizzie' Pope on the maps) have been seeded at Car 8.

The full entry list can be found here

With the rally less than a week away now - there are a few last minute jobs to do to the car :-

- Fit x4 new Sportway tyres
- Fit the sumpguard (removed as it was dead weight for the autosolo & sprint)
- Full spanner check
- Repair spotlight wiring & test spotlights
- Pack car with full road rally kit i.e. full trim, spares, tools etc....
- Fit new wheel nuts
- Fit new Brantz trip sender
- Final pack of Suze's rally car

Good job its a bank holiday weekend !

Sprint Results

2011-08-28T18:49:00.001Z

A good day out at North Weald today, on the new longer course saw me end up 2nd in class and 40th overall (53 entries)

A mix of weather made it more interesting and the freebe tyres i was running made the wet running very slippery at times !

Sprint Video

2011-08-28T18:45:00.000Z

Sprint

2011-08-26T09:39:00.000Z

Here is the new sprint course that i will be competing on on Sunday at North Weald - lets hope the weather is better than today !

Sprinting

2011-08-19T09:21:00.001Z

The entry form for the 7Oaks MC Sprint at North Weald has just gone off in the post. They are running a new longer course this time, which looks to offer more of a challenge and gives better value for money.

I am entering the event as a shake down for the Bullnose Endurance Rally the following weekend, which is a championship round.

With a house move and a long time between events it will be good to get back in the driving seat to shakeedown both the car and driver.

Hopefully again I will be able to run the video camera (once I have found it, in amongst all the boxes!) and be able to post them up soon after the event.

No rush for the Powerush....

2011-08-01T18:57:00.000Z

Sadly the Powerush has been cancelled due to a lack of entries :(

Although it does give me Saturday to start getting the rally cars ready for the Bullnose.

ERRC Open Day & Autotest (PCA)

2011-07-31T13:53:00.000Z

Yesterday saw the Endurance Road Rally Championship Open day at the Heritage Centre Museum at Gaydon. The day gave competitors and organisers to discuss options for next year, navigation skills sessions and a talk by Stuart Turner which was very good. The event was very well run by my usual nav Lizzie Pope.

In the afternoon I ran a car-prep session alongside Nick Pope, who recently was a scrutineer at the British Grand Prix.

After that there was a Production Car Autotest, which is an all forward autotest with a navigator to give directions. This gave the chance for drivers and navigators to swap seats. Since I had used Suze's Micra as a prop during my talk, I drove the Micra for this.
The Micra was also being driven by Suze and Richard Brooks (her usual Nav) who swapped seats - so the Micra ended up being triple driven. Also I ended up navving for Nick Clarke & Richard Atherton - so it was a busy afternoon.

There was two tests each run twice, although it was hard work on a hot summers afternoon swapping to old tyres was good a) for the budget and b) allow us to push on hard. The Micra ended up taking 1st, 2nd and 3rd in the Road Rally Car class. I took the overall and class win, with Suze 2nd and Richard 3rd.

I took the overall win by just over a second over Graham Dance who won the Road Car class in his Diesel Golf.

Autosolo Video - The Fun Test :)

2011-07-25T22:07:00.000Z