Day 6 - Acropolis Stages

Today was always going to be one of the most challenging days short of Africa. An early start and straight into the competitive sections - 6 in total spread between Kamenavourla and Athens; several being stages from the famous Acropolis rally, famed for its hard rocky gravel roads. 

We awoke to torrential rain and this remained for most of the day. We were third car through the first section and set the fastest time (our first). Later, a car got stuck on a muddy uphill section and blocked the road. Crews waded around in knee high mud to get their cars around or out. We were quite happy with our high seeding when we heard of the problems behind us. 

Only one of the 6 competitive sections was on tarmac and most of it in Greece is extremely slippy when wet. In fact everything in Greece is slippy when wet. The pavement, the floor in the motorway services, the hotel lobbies and the mud. Bored health and safety officials should travel here  when rain is forecast - they would have a field day. Car sized gaps in the walls on slippy bends seemed commonplace and are probably not worth repairing. The locals build a little shrine instead. 

The rain meant that the 300 miles of country roads between the sections were often as challenging as the competitive sections and the timing to get from one to the other was tight so time penalties could be incurred. It was necessary to crack on. The added difficulty in doing this was our one dimensional white van special tyres.  They either turn, brake or accelerate but not one with another. I got into the habit of braking hard in more or less a straight line, turning (with fingers crossed) and feeding in the power about half way round as the car started to slide round. This disconcerted a few locals coming the other way who perhaps didn't quite understand why a rally car should be appearing round a corner of their local public road sliding sideways. 

Our efforts at the end of the day earned us a place on the ferry from Piraeus to Alexandria from which I'm tapping out this note. We are still in 3rd placed I think (no confirmed results issued yet) but dropped about 10 mins in total today (all dropped some) as we backed off in the later sections to avoid damaging the car and ensure we made the ferry. 

The stages were great but bumpy and very rocky in places. I could feel the car taking some sizeable hits underneath (making me wince on occasion and we noted later a sizeable dent in our front guard caused by a rock). As we are carrying a load of extra weight to add to the stress on the rear - better to back off. The rally for real starts in Africa. 

A few words on our car; the only Subaru on the event. I've mentioned before that's its an 'ebay car', bought for just over £3k as an insurance write off and built to a budget of £10k. It's a 2 litre non-turbo car running on van tyres and its designed to be low cost and reliable (as we are pretty useless mechanics). 

Despite this, because the car has a nice paint job and a cooling vent in the bonnet, it has caused some concern amongst the guys driving classics (ooh a full rally Impreza, that's a bit unfair). 

We must have answered the question a dozen times - "this is a turbo, yes? Must be great with all that power?". Arghh. We have to explain that turbo petrol cars are not allowed on this event. Our car has 160hp with the downside of all the weight of the 4x4 system and our spares and kit (enough to sink a ship). On top of that, we are on van tyres. They really needn't worry that I can just put my foot down and leave them standing. 

This is really an experiment in producing a low-cost rally car for an event like this. It is one of the most inexpensive here. I hope the organisers take note of that. 

Our next competitive action is on Monday in the Egyption desert which should be quite a contrast.

Some pictures from Greece