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The ‘Lands
End to John o’Groats’ (LEJOG) Reliability and Touring
Trial is often described as the longest and toughest road
rally in Britain.
During our trip we had a broken exhaust, engine misfire,
broken speedo cable and brake servo failure. See how we
fared…
Friday 5 December
We left Chichester early at 6am to ensure we had plenty of
time to get the Magnum to Lands End for the scrutineering
and route plotting. The organisers of the rally ‘Historic
Endurance Rallying Organisation’ (HERO) were very thorough
at the scrutineering point, the First and Last Garage, Lands
End. They check the engine bay, the secured items in the
boot, emergency equipment and carry out noise tests. Once we
had covered up the car battery terminals with tape we got
our PASS sticker and headed down to Lands End check-in in
the ‘Labyrinth’. A strange place to check-in as we were
surrounded by a permanent display of shipwrecks and tales
from the deep, but we didn’t have time to ponder as we
were whisked along a line of checking in desks receiving our
‘LEJOG’ car plaques (number TT18), stickers, badges and
assorted information. The place was a hive of activity and
all around us were teams busily scribbling out the route on
various sized maps. Our Touring Trial was the slightly
simpler tour as our whole route was already mapped and
posted up on display boards. We had a Super Scale OS map of
Britain (2.25 miles to the inch), which worked out well,
whereas those on the Reliability Rally with extra tests were
having to mark up about 20 OS maps and their route was
deliberately incomplete as they were to receive instructions
en route. After about 2 hours of jostling for a view
and marking up our map we were all set. We finished the day
with an excellent ‘black tie’ dinner at the Lands End
Hotel with a jazz band playing, and the excited chatter of
more than 200 rally entrants.
Saturday 6 December -
The Start
Our start time had been set at 8.18am; 18 minutes past the
hour to match our number - TT18. We were up early and it was
a dark, misty and cold morning, but most of the competitors
at our B&B were also up and about checking over cars and
getting engines warmed up. We saw the oldest car in the
field, a 1930 Alvis Silver Eagle, open top two-seater,
departing from our B&B and we soon followed it on the
short drive down to Lands End where we parked up and awaited
our start time. The view of the car park was fantastic: old
Rileys, Rovers, Austins, a MG PB ‘Cream-Cracker’,
Astons, Alfa Sprints, Mercs VW Beetles…but only one
Vauxhall us! At 8am the first car was ready to start and we
all duly lined up and drove around the Lands End buildings
to ensure everyone started with a view of Land End and the
sea.
Down went the chequered flag and we were off, right on time.
The Touring Trial is not a race, it’s an endurance rally
for car and drivers so the main aim is to keep things going.
Consequently we cruised away from Lands End along the North
Cornwall coastline quickly adopting the smaller B roads on
our planned route, and back to an era when all road travel
was like this. The sea mist had cleared and a fine cold and
sunny day greeted us, giving us spectacular views over
Cornwall and the sea with enough time in hand to stop and
take a few pictures of the cars and scenery.
We checked our map-reading skills and got used to the scale
of the map. The 2 hours we had spent marking up the map with
a yellow highlighter pen was well worth the time and effort
as navigation just from the text description would have had
us going up many a blind ally. Our first check point was a
Happy Eater just beyond Redruth where we had to get our time
card marked. On the time card for the whole rally there were
20 major controls to visit and about the same number of
check points which had to be completed in the form of some
information, e.g. name of pub, name of church minister etc.
and this would keep us busy and give us a chance to meet up
with others on the both the Reliability Trial and Touring
Trial. The intermixing of the two rallies was excellent as
beginners, like us, and professional historic rally entrants
could rub shoulders and we could get a flavour of the
serious business of a fully timed historic rally. Everything
would go well as long as we didn’t hold up the
professionals.
We carried on up through North Cornwall and Devon, skirting
the edge of Exmoor National Park and on up to the M5 without
incident, feeling quietly confident in our and the car’s
ability. But as the winter night began to darken so did my
thoughts of the night section through Wales. For some reason
I was thinking of gremlins rather than griffins and sure
enough as we left the toll at the Severn Bridge I could tell
the exhaust was not sounding quite right. A supper stop at
the Magor Services in Wales gave us a chance to look
underneath and we could see a large crack right round the
exhaust pipe just underneath where the rear seats are
located. It looked bad and I didn’t think exhaust tape
would hold it but our luck was holding as HERO had organised
the RAC to be present at the major stopping points and they
had a tent already set up in the car park. Two RAC men, some
frantic spanner work and a decent repair job meant that an
hour later we had a useable exhaust system again.
Off we went in the dark on the small roads weaving up the
edge of East Wales. Various check points were noted and the
information recorded. Towns came and went - Monmouth,
Abergavenny, Y Bala, Ruthin - and on we went in the dark,
our thoughts returning again and again to the question ‘What
are we doing here?’
A quick stop for some strong black coffee at one of the
towns highlighted how cold it was getting, and while we
huddled in the car with a map and a torch the townspeople
were heading out for a Saturday night’s entertainment. On
we went into the night when a strange fishy smell began to
filter into the car. |
Electrics?
The Welsh gremlins were at work again. The smell came and
went until eventually the problem became clear as the speedo
cable started to fluctuate wildly. This was going to mess up
our mileage recording and although we could still gauge our
speed it was never going to give an accurate mileage
travelled.
The Super Scale OS map was great for the open road sections
as it pretty much showed anything with tarmac on it. Where
the map let us down was in the towns as it just doesn’t
have the space to show three entrance roads and five exit
roads accurately. Hence we passed through some of the Welsh
towns and villages more than once.
On the rally there is a rule called Baulking.
Baulking: LEJOG
uses many narrow roads where overtaking is difficult. Some
parts of the route are shared with the Reliability Trial. If
a Reliability Trial competitor comes up behind you it is
OBLIGATORY for you to slow down and pull over to let them
by, even if this means coming to a complete stop in a narrow
gateway.
Bearing this in mind
and being novices at this rally game we would often pull
over if we thought there was a rally competitor breathing
down our necks. Sometimes it was just a ‘modern’ (car)
but as the night drew on into the early hours it tended to
only be fellow rally drivers mad enough to be out on the
roads. So at around 2am we had just come out of a Welsh town
on an exit we were not too sure about and quickly lights
came up behind us. Naturally we pulled over expecting the
car to quickly overtake. But it didn’t, it just sat behind
us with lights blazing. We waved the car to pull around but
there was no immediate reaction. Just when it was starting
to feel like a scene from ‘Close Encounters’ the 4x4
truck pulled up alongside and the passenger leaned out and
said ‘Are you alright? We are the sweep car for this
section and you are the last in the group so we can’t
overtake’. ‘Oh right’ we said. Needless to say we then
sped off in the wrong direction and promptly lost the ‘sweep’
vehicle! The Welsh section then went west continuing on up
to the Snowdonia National Park well into the early hours of
the morning. In fact we did reach our last control stop in
Chester at about the right time (3.30am) but others had been
allowed to check in early before the official control point
opening time, to get a better night’s sleep. We felt like
we had missed the ‘unwritten rules’ somewhere.
Sunday 7 December
Having crashed out at our very nice hotel in Chester at
4.00am we were determined not to be quite so relaxed, and
not be the last in the group the next day. A 7.00am
breakfast did feel early but we did seem to be the first up
and 3 hours sleep was just about enough. It was a cold and
bright sunny day as we headed for our check out control from
Chester. An impressive hotel lobby was where we got a
signature for the start of the second day of the rally. (We
couldn’t believe it was only Day 2!) The hotel car park
was a great site - a bit like a working classic car museum -
but here all of the cars were being fired up, revved up and
in some cases repaired. The Reliability Trial rally has
additional ‘off-road’ sections, which were taking there
toll on some of the cars. I saw a Rover P4 with a big dent
in the front bumper and nearside wing being pulled out, a
Healey 3000 with a front quarter sideswipe and a Lotus
Cortina with similar damage. As the rally developed there
would be quite a few retirements from the Reliability Trial,
including a Lancia Appia with gearbox failure and a Volvo
P1800 that caught fire and went up in smoke.
We exited Chester with a new sense of optimism and headed up
a short motorway section to get to the next area of stunning
scenery and great driving roads, the Yorkshire Dales.
We turned off the M6 just above Preston and followed
unmarked roads through Slaidbura and Ingleton where we then
turned onto a narrow road and drove high up into the Dales
to Ribble Head, where we were presented with breathtaking
views across to the Pennines. Another coffee and photo stop
was required and we let a couple of our fellow Touring Trial
compatriots fly by and disappear into the fantastic
landscape below.
The rally being an endurance event, not a race, meant that
we would often catch up with groups of cars at town and
check points along the way, have a chat and take yet more
photos, all of which makes the whole event more enjoyable
while still being tough.
The one big problem was that the control points would be in
quaint little villages in the quaint little pub, but with no
chance to sample the local beers. From the quaint village
(and pub) at Hawes we went back west for the final section
in the Yorkshire Dales which took us along high single-track
roads through Garsdale Head and past Baugh Fell; beautiful
scenery which without a cleverly planned route we would
never have experienced. We left the Dales and headed back
south to the Lake District for a exciting evening run in the
dark through Grassmere and Ambleside, lit up for Christmas,
up over the icy Honister Pass, down around by Buttermere and
finally heading out to Carlisle.
It was my first visit to Carlisle and it was larger than I
expected. Having checked in at our control point, a large
hotel on the south side, our instructions indicated a big
loop on the M6 to get to our hotel on the north side. An
official said ‘You can try going through the middle but I
wouldn’t advise it’. The M6 it was then…or maybe not.
As we got back into the Magnum we saw the open top Riley’s,
Alvis and an MG ‘Cream Cracker’ talking to a taxi driver
who was taking their luggage to their hotel. Tim said ‘ I’m
sure they said the Holiday Inn, that’s our hotel’. There
was no time to check as they were off and we had decided to
tag along.
However it was fairly busy through town with lots of
junctions, roundabouts, traffic lights and traffic to
contend with and the taxi was not going to take it
slowly. |
There we were
the fifth car in a mad convoy through Carlisle in the dark;
we needed to keep close but the risk of getting too close to
the very valuable car in front was very real. It felt more
like a race than we had done all day but the thought of
getting lost in central Carlisle kept us focused and to be
honest it was good fun. We arrived at the hotel much quicker
than we might have, and thankfully it was our hotel as well!
We were checked in our room by 8pm and had the luxury of a
few beers at the bar, another chance to talk about the rally
so far with fellow compatriots, followed by a really good
hot buffet organised by HERO.
Monday 8 December
Up again at 7.30am, showered, refreshed and ready for
another full English breakfast.
This time the restaurant was very busy and although some
competitors had already left, most were enjoying the last
moments of luxury before the following 24 Hour drive ahead.
It was cold, very very cold, and all the cars were covered
in frost and ice. The sights and sounds of all these great
looking cars firing up on a frosty morning will be an
enduring memory for me. Another short motorway section, and
our last, took us onto the A7 and into Scotland. Then up to
Langholm across country to Moffat, then cutting back west
underneath Glasgow and on up through Kilmarnock and
Dumbarton past the ‘bonny bonny’ banks of Loch Lomond.
By now the sunny day had turned to thick mist and we had the
added problem of fuel. All the way up we had been putting in
‘lead replacement petrol’ because it seemed OK and that’s
what the car was running on at home. The further north we
went the less choice we had, and on reaching Scotland the
choice seemed to be either unleaded (95 RON) or diesel. Now
I had bought along additive but we tried it one morning in
Chester and immediately had what appeared to be a misfire so
we went back to LRP. But now we were running very low on
fuel and we were running out of places on the map that
seemed likely to have petrol. So we added a 20-mile loop to
head off to Helensburgh which turned out to be bathed in
beautiful sunshine. We were running on fumes when we finally
found a petrol station and yep all they had was diesel and
unleaded (95 RON). The only reason I mention the detour is
that since that day the Magnum has been running on unleaded
(95 RON) plus Castrol valve master additive. But later
during the rally, fuel problems came back to haunt us in the
frozen highlands.
We left sunny Helensburgh and went back into the mist and
onwards to Tarbet where we had a control stop. Beautiful
views across Loch Lomond can be seen from the hotel car park
and we took a few more snaps for the album. The mountains
were growing in stature all around us as we headed up and
into the highlands, passing the ‘unused’ hill climb that
was to be used by the Reliability Trial but was cancelled
due to severe ice conditions. We followed the west coast
through Inveraray around Loch Awe and up to and across
bridges over the stunning ‘Falls of Lora’ and Loch
Creran with a fading orange sunset. Then just as the
darkness was falling on our final stretch before the supper
stop near Fort William the Magnum started to misfire quite
badly. We stopped the car in a lay-by, whereby chance the
guys with the GT6 had been having a rest. We looked, we
listened, we decided it was definitely a misfire but then
another noise like a bearing beginning to complain came in
when revving the engine. We realised that for all the spares
we had we were not really ready to start pulling things
apart until we really had to. A quick check around on the
all the HT leads and other connections and we carried on
slowly to Fort William with the anxiety of a night’s
driving ahead of us in the frozen Scottish Highlands with a
sick car. The black clouds began to roll in across Loch Eil.
We reached our supper stop at a hotel in Banavie and
received a true Scottish welcome in a warm hotel bar (coffee
only) and an excellent hot buffet as always impeccably
organised by HERO. Our luck was still with us, for as we
pulled into the hotel car park the welcome site of the RAC
vans in situ greeted us. We were their first
customers and they had not yet set up shop. A quick look and
listen from an experienced mechanic was worth its weight in
gold. The misfire was not electrical because it came and
went so it had to be fuel. Maybe even water in the petrol
tank. If we kept the tank full we should be alright. The
bearing noise appeared to be from the ‘constant velocity’
fan, which is driven from the engine. All in all, nothing to
worry about, apparently!
The leaving time from the supper stop was now being strictly
marshalled as they did not want the Touring Trial to head
out too early and go for John o’Groats too early on. So
they held us until 9.30pm, giving us about 3 hours to rest
and get organised for the final 11 hours drive through the
frozen highlands.
We left on time, well fed and in a much more positive frame
of mind, which we would be needing later on. But after only
about 10 miles we came across our Dutch friends in the
Morgan who had complete lights failure. We stopped to assist
and managed to find them the right phone numbers to call
back to HQ and even cheekily asked if the RAC would come by
and give assistance, which was not strictly what they had
been asked to do. But they did and with various other help
they got the Morgan going with some ‘Heath Robinson’
wiring. Apparently it was all due to fitting new halogen
bulbs to a 28-year-old wiring loom and causing some kind of
overloading. The Dutch guys were brave to refuse any kind of
tow to the next control, which would have meant losing their
claim on a Blue Riband Medal.
Instead they trusted to luck,
a bit of electrical wire and the weather not getting any
worse, even though ice and frost was all around.
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We left the
Dutch guys before the RAC arrived feeling a bit guilty not
knowing their fate but they encouraged us to go and thanked
us for our efforts. It was getting cold. We spent the next 4
hours or so heading up past Loch Ness, up past Bonar Bridge
and Lairg and at Altnaharra we swung right on the ‘The
Strath’. We really felt we were heading into the
wilderness as the road became single track with signposts to
indicate passing places. It looked like an old ‘logging’
truck road for a forest that used to exist but was now gone.
The heater fan was beginning to blow cold air into the cabin
as it could not cope so we turned it off. We dressed in
coats and hats and we were still cold. Driving on and on,
the passing-place signs began to get hypnotic and all we
could see was a white road, frosted grass verges and
darkness. The Magnum was running quite well apart from the
occasional stall when we stopped at junctions, probably
carburettor icing we thought briefly. We found a church in
the middle of nowhere and answered one of our tour questions
‘Who was the minister?’, but I couldn’t tell you the
answer now if you asked me.
After about 3 hours in ‘Hell’s Gate’, as Tim had now
nicknamed it, we had stopped the usual singing in the car
which had previously kept our spirits up, and began to
suffer from cold, tiredness and fatigue. There are vague
images I remember, we passed just one other car that had
parked up the only French entry, a 1940 Hotchkiss Chantilly.
We came across herds of deer and stags wandering across the
road without much haste, as they didn’t seem to see us as
a threat. Tim was driving and had been for a long time and
it was clear I had to take over even though I was also
tired. It was the home stretch down off ‘The Strath’ and
a strange sensation took over my thoughts; it began to feel
like a real night rally stage with no one around anywhere,
the grip on the road was feeling good and it curved left and
right and I was beginning to enjoy myself. It felt faster
than it was, I think, though a couple of the corners woke me
up a bit tightening more than I had anticipated. We just
wanted, no needed, to get off ‘The Strath’ before we
went a bit too crazy. Just then I noticed the petrol was
running low - we had used a whole tank since Fort William!
We had a full can in the boot but it was LRP not the
unleaded we had converted to. Then the misfire started and
we both woke up a bit then. If it was water in the petrol we
needed to put petrol in, any petrol. We stopped and poured
in the can of fuel with still about half an hour’s drive
to the next fuel stop. The misfire was still there but not
as bad, but it kept us focussed and we finally left ‘The
Strath’ behind and found the town of Helmsdale with a
petrol station opened specifically for LEJOG. It was a
fairly short drive up the road to the breakfast stop at
Lybster at 6am in the morning. We had literally survived the
night and could only manage a cup of coffee sitting slumped
against a wall until other drivers we recognised arrived and
we joined their table where some seemed happy to tuck into a
full Scottish breakfast. We could not.
The clock showed 7.30am and it was time to complete the
final 30 miles. We went directly north along narrow roads
past farms and fields fighting to stay awake, focussing on
the tail lights of the Healey 3000 ahead. Then after what
seemed a long, long time we were there - John
o’Groats!
Tuesday 9 December -
The Finish
There was the finishing post, two bagpipers in full costume
and the organiser John Brown ready with the chequered flag.
We had officially travelled 1237 miles from Land End (though
I know we did more) and the relief of finishing intact was
fantastic. Much congratulating went on, and the official
photographer took the picture of the Magnum crossing the
finish line.
We celebrated with a wee dram and headed off to our hotel
where we slept soundly for 5 hours, waking in a panic and
thinking we had missed the evening do. But all was well and
we went to the Norseman Hotel in Wick for a fantastic ‘black
tie’ dinner with a great Scottish menu and prize giving
ceremony. For our efforts we received our Blue Riband Medal
for completing the Lands End to John o’Groats Touring
Trial successfully, and so did our friends we had met on the
tour.
Epilogue
We returned home in two days, travelling back through
Scotland in the daylight, which didn’t look half as
daunting, in fact rugged and beautiful. An overnight stop in
Edinburgh left us 1 day to get back to Chichester on the
South Coast. That morning the air was damp and cold and the
Magnum had the worst misfire of the trip. When we looked
under the bonnet Tim said ‘Look at the carburettor intake,
its covered in white frost!’ The solution was to detach
the faulty air intake so more warm air from the engine bay
got to the carb. That’s all the problem had been all
along!
A final reminder at Birmingham that the Magnum is nearly 30
years old was when the brake servo failed. A quick drive
around a hotel car park confirmed to us that the brakes
still worked and we could carry on safely.
So we did it - or more accurately the Vauxhall Magnum 1800
did it. Not just LEJOG but around Britain in 7 days and
about 2500 miles (I’m still working out the actual
mileage).
Anyone got some free Vauxhall Magnum parts?
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