The Shitball Rally 2010

Below is the write up for the sorry state of affairs we called the Shitball Rally 2010, another old story I am retrofitting to this new blog instead of writing any new material. It was a lot of fun to do though, I hope it reads with as much fun as we had doing it. Good news is, for the first time I will be including pictures!

First, some history - The Shitball Rally is an entirely made up thing which myself and a few mates came up with as a way to have an irresponsible lads holiday whilst indulging in that which we hold most scared amongst us - cars. The name was a mixture of the shit cars we would be driving and the Gumball Rally which was clearly an illegitimate copy of our idea.

The rules are that each contestant or team must buy a car for no more than £200, and it must be road legal. We then drive to Lands End in Cornwall, England over a few days. All the cars are decorated, and generally we will be their last owners before they meet their maker in the great scrap yard of the sky.

This missive refers to the second ever Shitball Rally and this time the decoration stakes have certainly been upped! Suffice to say we have entered a new league of very noticeable vehicles, including a Rover 25 masquerading as a Cow, and a Vauxhall Omega which thinks it’s a Tiger.

The flaky itinerary goes as follows; our first night is to be taken at a small field somewhere near Bude, in north Cornwall. The next night will be at Newquay in Cornwall. After a visit to lands end we will surface in Penzance, Cornwall and for the last night we will be staying in Amesbury, Wiltshire so the following day will be spent on Salisbury Plains Military training area.

The contestants for this wonderful farce are as follows;

First we have my noble steed - The Royal Snail;

The Royal Snail is an ex-Royal Mail postal van powered (Or not as the case was) by a non-turbo 2l Diesel engine with a manual gearbox. Back in 1993 this roaring powerhouse probably put out 10 horsepowers, now at least 20 of those horsepowers have escaped. The result of these escaped horsepowers is that the Royal Snail is never anything more than cataclysmically slow.

Occupied by the Awesomeness that is me, and Co-driven with all the fury of a thousand suns by Bob.

Inside the Snail were two hammocks so that I and Bob could sleep in the back in comfort. We also had a backup battery to power all the interior lighting, the stereo and the 12v power sockets. The backup battery was charged whilst driving. On the bonnet was a CB radio aerial for communication and an external speaker connected to the stereo to annoy passersby. The eagle eyed amongst you will also notice it houses the cooker for everyone on the rally, on its roof. This did -on occasion- cause problems with low bridges.

Team Camp Grenada;

Team Camp Grenada used a Ford Grenada saloon in top spec Ghia form – luxurious to the point of infinity… When compared to the opposition anyway. This included a roaring 2.8l Petrol Engine with an Automatic gearbox. The Grenada was the oldest car in the rally, made in 1983 but it was actually in the best condition – one owner from new. It won the best painted award before we left, although there was much complaining from Team Tiger as the Camp Grenada was in fact professionally sprayed using all the left over paint in a professional spraying workshop.

The Camp Grenada was piloted by Crispy, and co-piloted by Stewart and Pervin Mervin.

The Cow on top is called Daisy, and is Stewards prized possession. Why Stew has a cow called Daisy we were not sure, the fact Daisy wore lipstick was a little unnerving though. The Camp Grenada also featured a high-tech homemade raising spoiler for high speed instability. Among the Grenada's many, many reliability issues was that they were the only team with Cruise control, however once engaged it often refused to be disengaged. Their biggest problem was that whenever the gearbox was put under strain it tended to dump all of its oil.

Team Tiger;

The car below that disguise is a Vauxhall (GM) Omega saloon powered by a 2l Petrol engine with an automatic gearbox. The ears are made of wood backed by steel braces, welded to the roof. On the boot lid was also a tail which arched up thanks to some more steel welded onto the boot lid. The whiskers are made of metal brake pipe, barely a pedestrian hazard at all...

The Terrible Tiger was piloted by the master of bluntness, Ken. Keeping Ken company were James and Trude.

Team Tiger caused the most attention and in the view of many people deserved to win the decoration competition. The Omega proved to be very strong, and dished out most of the dents seen on the other vehicles during the Rally.

Team Moo-Cow;

Team Moo used a Rover 200 (rebadged M00) Hatchback powered by a 1.4l Petrol engine with a manual gearbox. As you can see the decorations extended to legs on the wheels, and even a set of horns which were a little at odds with the udder on the side of the car.

The Cow was piloted by Ollie, and keeping him company was Tom.

Team Moo left with a questionably reliable clutch and a spare in the boot just in case, their odds of survival were low to start with. The Rover took probably the most beating over the Rally as it was not quick enough to escape and an unfortunately tempting small target to pick on for teams Snail, Tiger and Camp Grenada. It was also the only vehicle not to be equipped with a CB-Radio, so attacks could be coordinated on them without their knowledge. The favorite way to initiate an attack on team Moo was to ask over the CB if anyone wanted a Beef sandwich...

Team Ladybug;

Team Ladybug used an Imported JDM (Japanese Domestic Market) Honda Prelude Coupe with a 2.2l Petrol engine and automatic Gearbox.

The Ladybug was piloted by a very lonely Russell.

Easily the fastest on the rally it was able to evade all attempts to squish it. Unfortunately Team Ladybug had to leave the Rally a day early and did not join in the mayhem on Salisbury Plains, which is a shame because it was probably the only one able to get away...

Team Golf;

Team Golf couldn't think of a better team name for themselves, or a better theme. They used a Volkswagen Golf GTI Hatchback with a 2l engine and Manual Gearbox.

Piloted by Gaz, and co-piloted by Mark.

The matt black finish was achieved using chalkboard paint, we were smart enough to take a lot of chalk and some lacquer to ensure the ruder things could not be removed! Unfortunately for Team Golf although they were quicker than most of the other cars they were often picked on, and were often seen running from a hunting Tiger.

Here is everyone before leaving;

The chaos of a week…

We arrived at the campsite for day one, a field literally in the ass end of nowhere in north Cornwall.
The day was eventful, first we were judged on the decorations of our cars. Team Camp Grenada won - we suspect cheating but cannot prove it. Mother was most upset to not be judging this year, she was so insistent she followed us to our start point to provide her own unofficial opinion and to try to convince the judge how to decide. We were judged by a local farmer, who chose the Camp Grenada due to its "high quality" paint finish.
And so we set off, the first leg was via motorway which the Royal Snail did struggle to do. With my foot welded to the floor we managed a heady top speed of 81mph at one point, it was a downhill stretch of course! Once off the motorway a brief stop showed the Snail had sprung a leak in its sump (previously sealed with copious amounts of chemical metal). We pressed on anyway and were soon on extremely hilly roads around Dartmoor National Park. Here the Camp Granada started to cause us trouble; it had sprung a bad leak from its automatic gearbox, and uses about 5l of (Very expensive) Gearbox oil to each 100 miles now. The leak had also developed over the exhaust, so every spurt of acceleration led to plumes of oily smoke.

Anyway, we did arrive at our intended destination - and only one car got stuck in the bog at the bottom of the field - guess who! That’s right; it’s the trouble makers of camp Grenada again!

There followed a bit of a lull in the updates until this one, contrary to popular belief I have not been arrested - far less ominous. The laptop I borrowed ran out of battery and we couldn't charge it!

Day 2 and 3 were spent at Newquay and Penzance respectively. At Newquay we stayed close to the town and as a result most of the rallyers were suffering somewhat come the morning. We drove on costal roads to get to Newquay which provided some fantastic scenery and a blue sky photo op;

After the above photos were taken the vans handbrake decided to fail, we are parked on a massive hill and the van decided to wander off downhill with everyone on the roof... Panic ensued.

For me, driving a van with no power steering, no discernable gears and a clutch which was gradually braking and required the same amount of force to press down as is required to crush a brick the scenic route was hard work. That said though the views made it well worth it.

From Newquay to Penzance we took more rural routes, often resulting in hill climbs so steep that at one point the van lost grip and started to go back down the hill whilst hopelessly wheel spinning. I was saved by the car behind, which kindly albeit against his wishes stopped my backwards momentum and with our combined suffering clutches we made it to the top. On the way we stopped for a break on one of Cornwall's pristine beaches, Ollie of Team Moo kept himself busy;

We all just relaxed;

We made it to lands end on Thursday and took the obligatory photo;

After photos we meandered down the cliffs to spot a Basking Shark just off the coast and investigate a wreck at the bottom of a valley.

From Lands End we had the longest part of our journey left to do in one hit - we were booked into a hotel near Salisbury for that night which is close to home and the gateway to the Salisbury Plains training ground for the next (and last) days punishment on the vehicles before they would meet their ends.

The drive was long, and the hardest on the cars despite the open roads and less fierce hills. On the larger roads and motorways it was clear that the Royal Snail was suffering, and it could not maintain an acceptable cruising speed (Unacceptable to me at least) so with the help of team Tiger pushing on some of the motorway hills we kept an average speed just about high enough to not be stuck behind lorries. Although I must say to anyone thinking of getting pushed along a motorway at speeds in excess of reasonable you should pick a more stable vehicle, because if you think crosswinds are a problem you should try handling them with no power steering whilst the back of your high sided and already unstable van is sat on top of the bonnet of the following vehicle.

On the Friday we set out across Salisbury plains military training area to prove that ordinary road cars overloaded and suffering many reliability issues were easily a match off-road for tanks and properly equipped 4x4s.

Put simply, if you would like to cross the Sahara I can recommend LDV vans - as long as you don't require an intact spine on arrival. The vans higher clearance meant we could clear obstacles which caused problems for the lower cars but having an LDV van created some unexpected downsides, the biggest of which is that the substantial rust holes in the floor will allow horrible stagnant, muddy water into the cab and back (Seeing as all our clothes were in the back this proved to not be as funny for us as it was for the other teams).

I have now also proved to myself that it is possible to drift the van, but you need a flat grass airfield and a very violent approach to make it happen, and mid drift there is a risk of a blowout where the tire is torn from the rim - when this happens there will be a brief moment of panic where you find yourself wondering if it was worth trying... Clearly it is, as everyone who has ever had one of those "Oh Bugger - that's not gone well has it" moments will know.

Team Granada had similar issues;

Whilst the Tiger hunted in the long grass;

We had to leave the airfield, as it turns out that the army no longer chases with tanks - now they use Lynx Helicopters. As we were "encouraged" to leave rapidly we may have hit some jumps in the van... the result of these small airborne jaunts is a snapped chassis, more specifically I ripped the leaf spring hanger on the rear axle from the rear chassis and whilst it happened crimped a fuel line and severely reduced the vans already terrible performance. - Basically, it hadn't gone all that well, had it?

We drove around the Plains for the rest of the day, it was very dusty on the gravel tracks and everything got smothered, we were all pale and grey haired by the time we got back. It seemed after the airfield incident that the Land Wardens (Land Wardens control access to the restricted areas on the plains) were everywhere and we were unable to get up to much more mischief, bar a little bit of nudge and spin on the tracks as we drove.

The below is just before leaving the plains;

Because of my damage to the vans fuelling we couldn't even keep up with lorries on the way home, at one point I had an epic lorry race where I and a lorry occupied both lanes of a dual carriageway for miles, causing a huge traffic pileup behind and undoubtedly long delays for the poor people in our wake. I won, but only because team Tiger got bored of the wait and rammed the van past. On the next large hill the lorry ingloriously overtook, and I lost him. For the colonials amongst you, a lorry is an articulated 18-wheeler truck, and in the UK all heavy commercial vehicles are limited to a maximum of 56mph.

Anyway after a very long seeming drive home from the plains we made it, every car drove itself back to each teams homes and was unloaded and stripped, ready for their final hurrah the following day - a destruction derby.

The finale!

I was a little bruised from our finales exploits I must admit, we used a local farmers woods and were joined by a heavily re-enforced Renault Clio hatchback, my first and only round in the van lasted about five minutes - that was all the time it took for me to smash the radiator and oil filter completely off and seize the engine. After a lot of fixing the van did run again, but it was left to the other half of team Royal Snail to drive because I would only ruin it again.

At the end of it all there was just one car still moving under its own steam - The Royal Snail still stood after all around her had fallen, although after each lap the engine seized due to lack of oil and water and had to rest. Team Tiger's automatic gearbox gave out, Team Camp Grenada had killed their gearbox but were also suffering engine problems, Team Cow had somehow engaged their immobilizer and could not start their engine, Team Golf and Ladybird had both declined the DD so were not racing and the reinforced Clio had suffered such a large T-bone from team Tiger it was knackered.

Below are some images of the DD and aftermath;