BCCC Round 4 Sweetlamb

As you approach Sweet Lamb, the hairs stand up on the back of your arm, its in the part of Wales which rally legends have raced you pass the Blue Bell Inn, in the good old days drivers would fall out of their Lotus Cortina’s and Mini Coopers after 18 hours behind the wheel to get their heads down in the pub for 6 hours before going down to the petrol station and re-fuelling in the local petrol station before attempting another stage on the RAC rally.
This was when “Men were Men” before committees took over the rules of motorsport!

Sweet Lamb is a ‘mans’ place to rally / off-road, as you turn off the A44 [now with repaired embankment, that had temporary traffic lights for a decade] you drive up to the bowl, the river on the left side which saw some of the great Hillrallys in the 90’s, when Supacats and Army MJ’s with winches had to be on stand-by to extract stricken vehicles after the drop into the river put water up to the windscreen and allowed water near to their clockwork distributors putting the V8’s on to six cylinders.
These days you can’t drive in water as the chances of any oil coming off the vehicle may kill a fish on the Congo Delta and the cost of Divers and a safety boat is too expensive.

One thing that doesn’t change about Sweet Lamb is the landscape, normally covered in mist or cloud, this damp land was created by the earth over thousands of years, rolling country side which is very hilly and steep and with deep gorges.

Drivers have to look at the track, and forget about the drop offs, the gorges, the ponds of doom and stories of ‘journey to the centre of the Earth’, you have to drive fast and very committed, ‘lift off’ or ‘bottle it’ mid corner and you’re a goner.

The course was a fast down hill start, yes!!! These boys wanted speed and with the help of gravity they had it, going on to tarmac, the thinnest road in the world which a rally car with a low centre of gravity can hug, and a 1600kg off road can wallow around on and perform some great spins on battle scared a/t’s !!
Then to the climb of the century, a climb Chris Bonnington would enjoy and the V8’s grunted their way up, a relentless series of corners and hairpins tested steering and brake control as the course came to a short straight with two jumps or 3 jumps if you were completely insane leading to a finish on a down hill.

In true off-road fashion, two events ran over the same weekend on different 6 mile courses BCCC Round 4 and a joint AWDC / NORC event.
BCCC always criticised by the club men as too expensive gave 16 runs for £195 which is roughly £12 a run whilst the grass roots off roaders paid £110 for 5 runs which is £22 a run. In true logical style the value of money competition being the BCCC had 22 entrants and David Simmonite memorial event attracted 68 entrants.

However with 22 entrants the top ten guys were on the pace and as normal the other in the pack were sitting there waiting to make good on somebody else’s misery.

Tim Dilworth had the biggest balls and the biggest feet as he trolleyed the little Subaru powered 206 to the fastest run on the Saturday, however the never ending punishment broke a centre prop, and then the heat took hold on the rest of the field, off roaders wrapped in layers of nomex and V8’s waterproofed like powerboats started to suffer problems due to heat.
Ian Rochelle had a smokey Millington, Richard Kershaw had a misfire due to a coil pack, Carl Duffield melted his rocker cover next to the turbocharger.
Cars started to splutter with fuel vaporisation, the marshal’s cream started to ‘turn’ and champagne warmed and strawberries had to be consumed in the Sahara heat.

But something’s never change, Alan Wilksons car was back on the trailer, the Milner had consumed another mechanical component, the engine had expired in a cloud of smoke again. But one good change was Justin Birchall, his car lasted the whole event and his kamikaze driving style suited the course to an impressive 4th Overall.

Dan Lofthouse took 1st, Richard Kershaw 2nd and Martin Gould 3rd, may be the drive of the weekend was Colin Gould in the beam axled Bowler getting 6th which was very credible considering the competition.

Last but not least, if anybody saw persons interfering with a ‘steel deer’ used for shooting practice, the owners of Sweet Lamb would like it back!!

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