Our car wash expert …washed car at 5:00am !
On to Nainitail!
How can so much happen in one day.
We arrived , the Naini retreat is nestled among the mountains it would remind you of a quaint cottage in England. The views are stunning and the mountain was lit up by the lights of the city. It sits beside a massive lake.
The day began uneventfully. We drove to the first test run about 64 km outside town. Unfortunately the rally organizers had to cancel it as there were too many trucks on route and the routes roads are single lane at best.
Nainital…beautiful lakeside town with a refreshing coolness in the air, we rest in a hillside hotel wiht a quaint English manor look
So on we drove. PC was 34 miles ahead we had a magnificent road which smoothed out and the undulating hills and seeping curves were great for Tony to drive.
The day grew hot and hotter. We weren’t that high. We came across a cow who tried to run with us. I tried videoing but alas it didn’t work. We were in a long convoy of cars. A neat run for all.
Later on we drove towards our next TC and a lunch was provided in a small road side hotel. The toilet facilities were very primitive. The old two foot prints and a hole style. Interesting to say the least.
Our next run was to another regularity this time we had limited time to get there. Sadly we drove through a small village where we came across a bunch of people in the middle at a blind corner of the road. Tony swerved to miss them and in doing so we hit a dog. Not sure how it fared but probably not well. There were so many around we decided to keep going. We were both sickened by the sad experience.
On we drove through small villages and into the open countryside and about 20 km on we came across our second regularity of the day. We left a 14:47 and were told that the first section went to a cross walk it was to be at 30km then the second section was to be 35 km/h to the end where ever that was Off we headed. The rate was steady until we came across a bus. So we manoeuvred carefully around it speeded up on till we saw the markings of a cross walk on the road. I think it was the first I had seen in India. We were on time and the things looked good, we changed speed to 35kph until a goat herder and his goats careened onto the road. We nudged forward but one goat would not move so we nudged it. I think it was stunned by the experience as I looked around, it just stood there after we passed. The farmer not too happy with us. We had to speed up to regain our time lost. We came round the very next corner and low and behold there was the finishing line. Unfortunately we had lost 17 seconds in the process. Not great but c’est la vie.
We figured others had fared better that’s for sure.
Well this is India and the roads throw so much at you. Potholes and streams, animals people and wayward drivers who want a photo. Oh yes and did I mention motorbikes plus the generally tough going. More rally cars fall by the wayside each day. Fewer and fewer maintain their gold status. Gold means you made every section and competed in every regularity within the time slotted. So far we are still in the running. We are 2 in class and about 16 th overall after our disastrous first few days we have begun to climb up the ladder. Not sure how much we can recover. This is our first time to do these regularities and they are darn difficult to do.
We are groaning a lot in the car itself, remember the frame is wood. We have a real creaking sound when turning left. It has grown in the last day a lot. Not sure of the cause. Tomorrow Tony will peak at it early in the morning but for now it’s off to bed. We are thoroughly exhausted.
Tomorrow’s start is very early up by 5:30 I am guessing
Over and out.
The roads conditions are vicious and much worse than what we eperienced in the P2P in 2013! The hammering to the front end is relentless. The shocks have given way and that has lead to a good deal of wheel tramping over the rough sections. We appear to bounce comically up and down in the car with Lee and I leaving our seats repeatedly as we get tossed vertically up and down. The front whell shimmy is a concern as it shakes the steering wheel out of my hand at speed and going around corners the front end skates, hops and slips sideways as we negotiate washboard road surfaces around corners…a bit scary. Engine continues strong although the fuel vapour lock is proving annoying and forces us to use too much clutch when working up hill in challenging situations. Hope we have a good and new clutch surface that will survive this???
