How should I describe Le Jog? I'll make it as one-sided as we experienced it. You could say that the three of us are experienced in long-distance rallies. After all, Balz and I built a rally Jaguar (MkI) 3.4 from a rust-free 2.4 liter body especially for Le Jog 2005.
Since then, we have driven a CRA Monte Carlo Rally and two of the AC de Monaco with this car, as well as many other shorter, less demanding rallies, meetings, mountain stages and classic car events. Whenever Balz's cream-colored Mk I and my black Mk I were too good to be maltreated, we resorted to the rally car.
Too little time for preparation
For work and family reasons, we had no time to prepare and so, three days before the start, we happily climbed into our trusty Jaguar and drove to England in a dash, sensibly avoiding the rush hour on the London ring road, to lay our heads to rest in Reading late in the evening.
Well rested, we set off for Lands End on Thursday in order to complete the technical inspection by 6 p.m. at the latest. Lands End is a long, long way from Reading, so we skipped lunch in order to arrive on time.
Registration and paperwork
On Friday we officially registered, there was paperwork, documentation, etc. The Novice Briefing started at 1100. After we started reading the regulations online in the Channel Tunnel, we knew that this rally was going to be tough. Le Jog is not considered the toughest rally in Europe for classic cars for nothing.
We were briefed on the rally for almost two hours by the specially appointed steward. We were dizzy, especially me, as it was up to me to navigate, while Balz was responsible for the steering wheel and pedals.
Crows Feet, Herring Bone, Circular Herring Bone, coordinates, elevation points, ordonance map 1:50,000, signatures, closed zones, departure in north-northwest, approach from southwest, etc., etc., etc. The steward said we would soon get used to it. However, it was very important to have an accurate odometer and to take the jogularities very seriously. The most important principle applies: direction before time.
By feel
We immediately took this principle to heart and decided to navigate the regularities as best we could, but to ignore the constantly changing speeds and ride by feel. (That works, ... to a certain extent, depending on luck).
So we drove the calibration distance again with 129 instead of 128 teeth in our Halda distance counter and actually managed to achieve a deviation of only 20 meters with this difference of 7% on the 23 km calibration distance. We spent the whole afternoon entering the missing parts of the first leg on our ordinance chart. A puzzle task exactly to my liking, but at a very high level. As the driver, Balz couldn't help, so he took care of other matters.
Start in Lands End
On Saturday morning we set off from Lands End, so far north and west that it was still night. We woke up to a wild ride through pylons, I stumbled over whether to go left or right past the cones and Balz wasn't hard enough on the throttle. At least we managed the whole exercise with dignity, the gold medal was not yet lost.
The navigation still went quite well, but we missed a few controls because I didn't read the Jogularity road book accurately enough and missed secret controls. That meant the gold medal was lost. At least it was uninterrupted until our arrival in the deep snow flurries 32 hours later at 0300 in North Wales.
In order to at least arrive at our destination on time, we broke off somewhere in Snowdonia - nomen est omen, it was snowing like crazy - and tried to use our smartphones to guide us to the hotel. But even modern satellite navigation was only up to the task to a limited extent. It wasn't just us who were late, many exams were canceled, but almost everyone arrived late.
Completely snowed in
On Sunday morning at 09.00 it looked like Switzerland, all the cars were covered in deep snow.
We made a drastic decision. From now on, I would drive and Balz would deal with the navigation. For me, this was already pleasant because I had already had to take medication for motion sickness twice on the first day. The colleagues on site also predicted that from day 2 onwards, we would not only have to read the map, but also calculate the coordinates and transfer them to the map. And all this while driving. The thought of it all made me feel "blummerant".
The route took us back to lower and more westerly areas on Sunday and the snow disappeared. Nevertheless, we had black ice, slabs of ice and snow of various depths on our stages until we reached our destination in John O'Groats.
Better not to argue
My co-driver soon got to grips with the navigation and I occasionally managed to get close to the target time on the skill runs at speed. We drove through parking lots, schools, go-kart tracks, drift tracks, farms, airfields and thirty special stages, always at and above the grip limit of the snow tires, whose pressure we had reduced to 1.8 bar at the front because of the snow.
We never had any arguments, but we heard terrible things from ambitious teams. Friendships could only be mended after several bottles of alcoholic beverages, flying objects in the cockpit, murderous silences or great cleverness in the vehicle. We were spared all this because Le Jog was our vacation and was seen as such.
40 out of 60 reach the finish
The cars slowly decimated. Only 40 out of 60 arrived. There was a Triumph at a turn-off to the left at 120 degrees. The garden wall opposite had a gap of over 5 meters at the top and was lying on the lawn. The navigator was just about to ring the front doorbell to inform the pitiful resident at 02.00 in the morning that his wall was now lying on the lawn in its entire width.
A Volvo 544 was parked at right angles to the direction of travel and like major or minor body modifications. The only fixed star for us was an "Auntie" Rover 100, which drove like clockwork on the track without much excitement. In a gentlemanly manner, it let us storm past to take the following turn-off correctly and calmly, while we missed the change of direction and had to turn back with a handbrake turn, only to come back impetuously from behind. An older "Bappeli" and his "Mameli" (meaning a grandfather and grandmother) were riding in the Rover. They were taking part for the 17th time this time. When the navigator peeled herself out of the bucket seat of the Rover in John O'Groats, she was already stumbling a little stiffly to the photo opportunity.
Of course, the Rover had a completely intact bodywork at the finish, just like another Swiss team in the Triumph, whose Saab stretched its legs during a training rally and therefore had to be replaced with a rented car from the organization. This team, which was challenging us for third place in our class, was well advised to bring the car safely over these fast 4500 km, as the deductible of the fully comprehensive insurance amounted to £ 10,000.
Sleep and 3 breakfasts in one day
The next night was almost civilized. Arrival at 21.00 and departure at 07.00.
The last night began in Scotland in Colyumbridge. Despite only two hours rest we reserved a hotel room from Switzerland. This was a bigger success than expected. Due to many canceled stages because of snow and ice, we arrived relatively early thanks to great experience with driving in snow. Although we helped to push and pull, we were still by far the first to arrive at the hotel. A secret post was just setting up and grumbled that neither the one-hour car nor car zero had passed by. We were also told that the start had been postponed by 2 hours due to precarious conditions. So we could go to sleep until 00.00.
We had breakfast three times that night. A fried ham sandwich at 04.00, a cooked breakfast at 08.00 and scones with clotted cream at 11.00 when we arrived at our destination in John O'Groats.
At our destination
Conclusion on arrival: It was an incredible experience that we would not want to miss, but without specific preparation and long training we would not repeat it.
Highlights: The incredible fervor with which the participants engage, the gorgeous roads, the stunning scenery, for me in particular the Yorkshire Dales, the inventive driving tests, the intricate navigation tasks.
The best teams incurred around 24 penalty minutes. We received 155 penalty minutes, but were outdone by a Swiss team with a humpback Volvo, which also always made a satisfied impression and declared the event to be primarily a day out for two friends. Out of around 60 cars that started, we finished in 32nd place, just outside the top half, but reached the finish line with a technically and bodywork-wise completely undamaged car.
The gold medal winners were:
- David Stanley/Peter Blackett on Triumph TR4
- Mark Godfrey/Martyn Taylor on MGB
- Andy Lane/Iain Tullie on BMW 2002 tii
- Thomas Bricknell/Roger Bricknell on VW Golf GTi
- Richard Isherwood/Ian Canavan in a Nissan Stanza Jubilee
