Sadly not the finish Lucy Wilding had hoped for on her debut on the ORC Canal Rally Oostrozebeke rally with Barri Wilmot.
A great start to the crew’s first time competing together, put them 3rd in class in their 1400 nova (a class consisting of "modified cars" including but not limited to a 2 litre escort and a couple of super 1600s.
A slight overshoot on a very fast section on stage 4 cost them about 5 seconds. The car then went light over a crest and unfortunately skidded into a run-off road before reversing and continuing on.
A spin on a 2L on SS8, which was very gravelly caused the back end to step out and spin them round in a complete 360 before planting the pair in a ploughed field! Initially being stuck and unable to reverse, until a few spectators started to run towards the stricken crew to help push, managing to reverse the car out of the field and continue on with the remaining 1.5 stages of leg 3.
On the road section back to regroup and service, they noticed a clonking noise and although it was thought it was a simple drive shaft change which would sort the issue, upon inspection it was impossible to remove the shaft from the box which resulted in an early retirement.
They completed 3 of the 4 legs of the event and have plans to do more events in Belgium later this year.
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