The recent Nigel Ferguson Fabricators Tour of Epynt had a longer two-day format and longer stages, but that was just the tip of the iceberg when it came the marathon shift that Tim Cole had to put in to complete Round 6 of the 2024 Protyre Motorsport UK Asphalt Rally Championship.
His first appearance on the famous mid-Wales military range had started well – until an inner cup, which goes into the rear diff, broke on his Manx Automobile Assistance/MAA Logistics BMW E36 Compact on Saturday’s final stage (SS4), leaving Tim and co-driver David Sutcliffe stranded with just sheep and the SAS for company.
Little did they know that this was just the start of a gruelling marathon adventure.
“We got back to service after getting recovered around eight or nine o’clock at night and because no one on the event had a spare inner cup we put a big shout out on the Protyre Asphalt WhatsApp group and on social media to try and find a replacement part,” explains Tim.
“After about an hour and a half of searching someone said that they had two in Swansea and that they’d leave them for us.
“Myself and a mechanic drove to Swansea, collected the parts and got back to Epynt at one in the morning. One of the lads kept working on the car until three trying in vain to get the old inner cup out of the diff. We said let’s call it a night, wait for daylight and Jack and Ross got up at six in the morning and were back in service working on the car at seven. They had to take the diff out and everything. They got the car fixed at eight thirty, an hour before our Sunday start time.”
Having run on adrenalin, Red Bull and chocolate bars Tim finished fifth in class B13.
But that wasn’t the end of it.
After the rally, Tim spent six hours driving the truck to Heysham, where he waited for the 02:15 ferry which docked into Douglas on the Isle of Man at 06:15 – just in time for him to go straight to work!
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