When you take part in any sport it’s important to go into an event with an open mind and treat it as an opportunity to learn new things. Well, this weekend’s Get connected Rali Ceredigion was certainly one of those occasions.

A few weeks ago I was asked if I would drive a Vauxhall Corse-e on the rally. It would be the first time a 100% electric vehicle had ever competed on a multi-venue stage rally. Without knowing too much about car I said yes as again, it was a chance to learn something new.

I knew that because it was a first and the rally was focussing on sustainability and promoting lower-carbon transport initiatives, it would gain a lot of publicity for all sorts of reasons. I tested the car last week to get a feel for it and I must admit that whilst I’ve competed in small hatchbacks before, it felt very different from any other I’ve ever driven.

This is mainly because of the transmission. There isn’t any. It’s just direct drive to the wheels from the electric motors. You can still left-foot-brake and use the handbrake as you would in a traditional rally car though, which is good.

The car was built by Opel Motorsport to take part in the ADAC Opel e-rally Cup in Germany. It’s currently owned by Myerscough College & University Centre in Preston, Lancashire, where a team of motorsport students maintain and prepare the car. They did a fantastic job of looking after Will Atkins – my co-driver for this event – and I throughout the event.

Without many moving parts, there was never going to be much that needed to be done at the service halts, other than charging the battery of course. Because you’re driving flat out on the stages, they told me it would drain the power four-times quicker than that of normal driving. Therefore, we had to schedule our rally a little differently to other competitors.

We did the two short Saturday stages that ran from Aberystwyth marina, around the sea front road beneath the castle grounds, into the town and then finished just before the prom. It was fantastic to see so many people watching. It was more than I’ve seen on some WRC events! A real credit to the organisers.

The route then headed inland for two much longer stages in the countryside. However, with delays caused due to a few incidents and cars blocking the roads, we only completed one of the stages before the overnight halt.

I then drove all of the stages on Sunday once, whereas other competitors completed them twice. Whilst the Corsa would have probably made it round the whole route, this was a huge learning exercise for everyone involved and we didn’t want to push our luck.

I was absolutely overwhelmed with the attention surrounding the project and the number of questions I was asked. Clearly, it was well received and people seemed to be very interested in what this meant for the future of the sport. They understood this represented a significant moment in the history of rallying and I have to say that I was proud to be part of it.

I remember making history three years ago, when in 2019 the event was held for the first time. Running at number one meant that I became the first driver to compete on closed public roads in Wales.

On that occasion I was driving a Hyundai i20 R5 and of course, it would be good to have been challenging for the overall lead again this year. But sport is cyclical and I’m sure that opportunity will come round again before too long. Whether or not it’s in a fully-electric, Hybrid or conventionally powered car, we’ll just have to wait and see…

Thanks and congratulations goes to everyone involved with the Corsa-e project: Myerscough College & University Centre, Cawdor Group – Vauxhall dealers covering Mid and West Wales – Renewable Developments Wales, Go Fetch pet travel, Michelin tyres, Garry Davies Accident Repairs and ATech Racing.

ENDS

Blog 1

Saturday, 15 February 2020 by

 

Whilst away in December 2019 on holiday, there was head space to reflect on the year gone by. There were no realistic options on the horizon for 2020. I was un sure whether I was going to move forward for another year in the British Rally Championship. Not because I didn't want to, it down to circumstances out of my control.

2019 on the whole was successful, 3 outright rally wins, handful of podiums, albeit one sizeable accident on the Ulster Rally. Which only dented pride thankfully.  I was never at one with car on that event, I had to push with out it coming naturally, Matt drove very well I could not get near to chinking his armour. I learnt a lot about my self that weekend too, I never voiced my opinions afterwards to anyone, I suppose I didn’t want to show a sign of weakness, but I was immensely disappointed, I knew the championship title was going to be a mountain climb blindfolded, near impossible! Fast forward to Galloway Hills rally, the minimum required was to win from my side, I didn’t feel the pressure, because I had nothing really to lose, it was all on Matts shoulders. We came out on fine form never the less, we won 8 of 8 stages and claimed the rally victory. This was a huge confidence boost, moving forward and a relief that I extracted a small positive from the past few weeks. Phillip and his army of mechanics, spent the best part of 2 weeks  prior to Galloway Hills solidngly, working, cutting, welding, ALZ R550 back together again after the Ulster rally incident. That win was for them, in large quantise of gratitude towards their efforts on getting the car ready for Scotland.

 

Wales Rally GB: A new co driver, Dale Furniss. I had known Dale for many years on and off events. I was looking forward to working together. The event on whole was very good. We started with few a car issues, one to note was a complete re wire job of the steering wheel, there was broken wire which was causing intermittent responses to my wheel output controls, Anti Lag control, Boost control, wipers etc. In the end all controls were lost on the wheel, prior to stage 2 Elsi. We didn’t have anti lag, or full boost then onwards for elsi and penmachno. The long road section down to Dyfnant gave us a opportunity to have a go at a road side repair job. Much to Dales delight in the pouring rain, Ciaran our engineer sent us over a wiring diagram, find attached photo! And we attempted a successful fix, having to use our teeth to strip the wire back! The time loss was on average, 25 secs a stage to fastest R5 car, so over 2 stages we lost the best part of a minute to my frustration!

To put the overall result into perspective we finished 15.9 seconds behind 2003 WRC champion Petter Solberg & 59 seconds behind 1st R5 car, Kalle Rovenpera!

On reflection,  It was a weekend of what ifs, whats ifs; Or like Guy Martin said I quote; “If, ifs and buts were pots and pans, we would all be scrap mental merchants” The result was my best finish to date on Wales Rally GB, 11th overall. It is an event I love, an event I looked upto when I was young lad, out spectating with my dad, and hopefully one day I get the opportunity to compete on WRGB in a WRCcar.

January 2020:

A new decade has began, it had been a tough 8 weeks, more from a personal perspective, a family bereavement, which puts added pressure on every one close to you, and you don’t realise how much it had niggled away in your own head in till you reflect back on it. We learnt an opportunity was possible do BRC again, in the Hyundai I20 R5. Heading to the Autosport Show at the NEC, discussions were carried out with our partners of 2019, and we agreed to go ahead with a programme in the BRC. As always these things never come together when you would like them to, but nonetheless I am grateful we have a programme to aim for, 4 weeks and counting to round 1, Cambrian rally.

February 2020:

Our pre event test was the first time I had been in the car since November. I knew we had a good setup from Wales rally GB, stages are similar on the Cambrian rally, same Pirelli Tyres. There wasn’t to much to learn from the test. We had a upgraded set of suspension to test, I felt the traction and feeling in the car was improved greatly with the upgrded shocks, so we opted to use these for the rally. Conditions were perfect, cold, crisp air & potent combination for a R5 car, engine felt strong all was happy heading into the recce.

As many of you have seen, the rally wasn’t successful. We came out fastest out the blocks, albeit Matt did stall on the start line of Stage 1. Matt fought back on stage 2 taking 1.5 seconds back over 8 miles. Heading into Penmachno stage 3, there was a small delay at the start. That gave us all a chance to have a catch up, chat abit of nonsense as we always do in-between stages.. I like to break out the Haribo’s keeps things sociable!

4.5 miles into the stage 3, the rear got away from me on a 3rd gear right hand corner, and the rear left wheel, struck a large rock. Consequently breaking the wheel, and brake disc into 3 pieces. I carried onto the next junction, I knew that was only 200 metres away. Luckily I did, because we could not get the jack under the car, thankfully the spectators lifted the car up enough to get the jack lined up with the jacking post, and we got the wheel changed, albeit 3 mins 35seconds have gone by. But it felt much longer working away on the side of the road changing the wheel in all the chaos, with cars hurdling past every 1 minute or so, and with hot wheel nuts to contend with, a VERY hot brake disc hanging off, the rally win had long disappeared into the horizon!

Overall result, we fought our way back up to 6th overall, scored crucial championship points, fastest times on the board too. Moving onto West Cork Rally in March; great event and based 2019, we showed good pace.

That is all for now, I hope you enjoyed my blog…

Head over to my social channels for regular updates and posts:

Instagram – tomcaveracing

Facebook – tomcaveracing 

YouTube – Tom Cave –  Please subscribe to my channel for action packed vlogs & plenty of on board action –

Bye for now,

Tom.

Tom’s Circuit of Ireland Rally Blog

Thursday, 14 April 2016 by

After returning from Belfast, I somewhat felt relieved to come away from the Circuit of Ireland rally with a good points haul. If you followed the rally, you would have heard of the endless changeable weather, which the stage conditions, incredibly tricky even on super soft Michelins!

There was a high attrition rate. Even from the start of the qualifying stage on Thursday, two cars had binned it. The stage was horrendous; I’ve never driven on a stage so slippery and unforgiving before.  Mud was an issue. It lasted pretty much from the first corner till the last corner.

I struggled. I will be honest, the feeling wasn’t there. I wasn’t at one with the car and I really couldn’t find a decent rhythm! This was going to be a tough weekend. I calculated after the qualifying stage that I was losing 1.5 sec per km to Elfyn (Evans) who was fastest on the qualifying stage.

Then I worked out I would be approx. 30 secs off him just on the first stage alone on the Friday morning.. I was right.

At the end of the first stage I was confronted by Colin Clark & the rest of media crowd from Eurosport. I glanced across to the timing board where the marshal put up our time and I was pretty much 30 secs off Ellyn’s time! And there was another 150km to go…At that point I knew I was in for a tough weekend.

That completely deflated me to be honest.  I guess that was noticeable even at the end of SS1 as Colin Clark rightly said after he saw me in the regroup zone at the Bushmills whiskey factory after the first loop of stage. He said my face just dropped at the end of that stage. I guess it’s only natural when you want to be competitive and you’re not!

We ended the first leg languishing down in 12th overall. We couldn’t amend any springs or considerable setup changes during the day because we had no main service and remote service, which means we are only permitted to change parts that are kept in the boot of the rally car.

Of course, you wouldn’t have set of spring rates or a haul of anti-roll bars in the boot because it’s all weight, so I had to be patient with the car and wait until we got back to Belfast on Friday evening before we could do anything with the car. I was glad to see the back of that day.

When I got back to service I requested to have my in car from day 1 from Hayfisher TV who supply the in car cameras so that evening I got back to hotel and sat down and watched every stage in detail looking for answers. I didn’t get to bed till 2am and I was determined to make the best of leg 2. And show some spark…

We left service Saturday morning, feeling positive. I made a few changes to the car after consulting an M-Sport Engineer and we discovered two areas that weren’t quite right with the cars setup. So we managed to make some amendments in the search of a better day.

On the road section out to the first stage of the day, I discovered we had a gearbox issue, oil was leaking really bad from the side of the box. James and I made road side repairs to insure we didn’t lose any more oil. I felt the gearbox getting tighter as the morning went on. Much to my surprise we got through the loop driving sympathetically, ensuring the gearbox wasn’t getting any abuse.

I couldn’t push the way I wanted on the first loop but I was much happier in the car after the setup changes we made, and we were going in the right direction which was a relief.

After passing Ahlin crashed out on the Bush Mills stage, I knew all I had to do was just get to the finish. With Evans, Cronin, Ahlin, all out of the rally, the main championship contenders for me heading into the next event haven’t scored a point, where we came away with 12 points! In the end the weekend wasn’t soon bad after all, I’m glad I kept my head when the going was getting tough in the car.

Thanks to James for putting up with me… And thanks to Spencer Sport lads for getting the car to the finish!

Next up will be the Carlisle Rally so it’s back to gravel at the end of April.

Tom’s Blog – Mid Wales Stages

Monday, 14 March 2016 by

On to the main purpose of the year, The MSA British Rally Championship and the Mid Wales Stages.
The strategy was to achieve a podium. My confidence was low after the accident and it was important to get a solid finish and get the championship underway on a positive note.

The recce became a challenge in itself, keeping my trusty Subaru forester recce car on the road in a straight line thanks to a thick layer of snow and ice which adorned the stages. It made the recce a challenge for the crews who were in 2wd recce cars who found themselves stuck very frequently which sadly slowed the whole convoy. But thankfully the conditions warmed up in the afternoon and we completed the recce without ending up in a ditch or any tow rope in site.

We completed a test at Higgins Rally School in Carno mid Wales that evening, after the recce. This became very beneficial to us. Because the conditions were shockingly bad, we gave the car a good shakedown, played around with lights for the night stages on the Saturday and made few minor suspension changes to suit the slippy conditions.

The first loop of stages on Saturday started very well, posting a 3rd fastest time on stage 1 & then followed by 4th fastest on stage 2, even driving out of the stage on a rear left puncture for 4 miles! Which I was very surprised with..

We fought with David Bogie on Sunday for 3rd place, we managed to hold him off and recorded a very satisfying 3rd place with a strong points haul.

Next up is the Circuit of Ireland – fantastic stages few we’ve driven before on Ulster Rally 2012, Torr head stage known as Ballymena this year is personal favourite of mine.

Thanks for reading,

Tom.

 

Blog – Red Kite Stages

Monday, 14 March 2016 by

The intentions for the pre-season outing on the Red Kite were to build a working relationship with new co driver for 2016, James Morgan.  Also we needed to gather data from the car with regards of setup of diff settings in preparation for the Mid Wales Stages.  Spencer Sport were new to the Fiesta R5 it gave the lads & team time to bond with car and get to know how it works. They’ve had R5 experience with running the unique Mitsubishi Mirage R5 on national events over the last 12 months or so.

BUT…

A mile into stage 1, unexpectedly the car dictated a change of direction very aggressively and we went off the road at 120kph backwards down a 250ft ravine. The car rolled more times than I could count and we fortunately and violently came to an abrupt end which felt like a entirety rolling down the hill bouncing off the trees. I remember Jari Matti Latvala’s accident at Rally Portugal 2009 when he crashed in the Focus WRC and rolled down the mountainside and you just can’t comprehend something like that till it happens to you. It’s not a feeling I wouldn’t want to wish upon anyone and never want to experience again.

It took nearly 48 hours to recover the car. It was clearly going to be extensively damaged.

But amazingly, it was repairable in time for the Mid Wales Stages, some 11 days later. I personally would like to thank the M-Sport & Spencer Sport technicians and also Dave Jenkins Motorsport who spent all weekend nonstop painting the car after the car returned from the body shop at M-Sport.

Welcome to Tom’s Blog

Wednesday, 09 March 2016 by

Welcome to the first ever Tom Cave blog!

So we started off the year not knowing whether I would be competing at all this year.  There simply weren’t any real offers on the table.  Of course, I had the option of the Drive DMACK Fiesta Trophy but I really didn’t see the benefit for me of staying in that series for another year.

I wanted to be in a R5 car for 2016 but things were looking bleak.

However, low and behold an opportunity raised its head during the week leading up the Autosport Show.

Spencer Sport, who is a family concern based in Llandysul West Wales wanted me in a R5 Fiesta EVO in the new-look BRC which was now attracting attention from around the world.

They were fortunate enough to have a excellent tyre deal on the table with Michelin all we needed was a car…

A deal was struck with M-Sport World Rally Team and we got our hands on Elfyn Evans’  Sweden winning  WRC2 Fiesta R5 EVO. It was game on.

 

 

Facebook

7756

Tom's Twitter

14.6k
TOP