On Tuesday 12th November we met up at Coleg Cambria at 7 o'clock and we had a meeting with Jerome the F.I.A representative. He read through the regulations and what needed to be checked. The regulations were very complicated and very difficult to get your head around. The meeting lasted a couple of hours but in this time we still didn't learn what we were going to be doing the next day. We were given scrutineer bibs, a jumper and our passes which would get us in nearly everywhere. Then we were told to meet at the service park for 9 o'clock in the morning.
Day 2
In the morning the 9 of us from Coleg Cambria met up outside the Volkswagen team garage and were met by the scrutineers who started checking over the cars and we were left stood there talking and taking pictures of the cars. This is what the morning consisted of and after they had finished checking the Volkswagen, Citroen and Ford cars the cars were fired up and went to their noise tests, we were allowed to get really close to them as they were doing this. After they finished this we were told to head back to Coleg Cambria (Deeside Campus) as all the other cars would be checked and scrutinized there. When we arrived their was a large crowd of people waiting to see the rally cars and there was a remote control helicopter (drone) with a camera to take aerial pictures of the cars and us stood next to the cars. This was when we got our first hands on experience with the cars as we had to push the cars into the workshop so they could get weighed and they had their safety equipment checked. To start off with i was helping push the cars in but after a while i was told to go and help check the helmets and overalls. I did this for a few hours and got chatting to some of the scrutineers and got sent off the get the tea and coffee on a couple of occasions which kept me entertained when there was no safety equipment to check. Then as it was about to turn 7 we were told that we were allowed to go home and that we had to be at the service station for 5:45 AM (i'd just like to point out i only know of one 5 o'clock during the day and that is followed by PM).
Day 3
Due to me mishearing what time we were supposed to turn up i ended up arriving at 5 o'clock so i was stood around waiting for 45 minutes wondering if i had gone to the wrong place but eventually they showed up and we had to follow the pedantic Swedish F.I.A person who took 4 of us to learn how to scan tyres, he didn't speak much English and ended up making Jack keel over with laughter when he tried to say wi-fi. He was very strict and wanted the job done correctly and quickly. Dan was the first to do the tyre scanning where you had to scan the roll cage all the wheels and the spare but you had to do all this in under 2 minutes. Dan had the tricky job of doing this on the world champions car while he was sat in it. To be fair to say he cracked under the pressure and the pedantic swede took over and finished his car then it was my turn and i managed to do it with no problems which i was very relieved. To be continued...........
Day 3 part 2
After we had checked the first couple of cars we all got the hang of it and we were able to check out all the cars without problem. Then we had to wait around until the cars got back from the shakedown and qualify. When they got back from their qualifying Jack and I had to go into the parc ferme with the top WRC cars and scan their tyres, this was the best part of the whole week because we were able to get really close to the cars and drivers with no rush to get them done quickly so we could have a really good look at the cars. After we had finished doing this we had to wait around for the cars to leave for the first stage. when we finally got called we were told to get ready to check the tyres on all the cars and were told they would be coming at 2 minute intervals so we would have loads of time to do each car.... they lied, all the cars came at the same time and we were running around trying to scan, put stickers on and mark the tyres. It was a crazy time but we were able to get them all done without any mistakes. After we had done this we were told that they only needed 2 of us to check the cars when they came back in so me and Dan volunteered but we had to wait 4 hours for them to return which was a long wait. When the cars did return it was 10 o'clock but it was good fun and it was nice and relaxed. But Dan started to get an obsession with Amy Williams (Olympic gold medalist). He was determined to either get her autograph or get a picture with her before the rally was over. But after we had finished checking the cars in he went to look for her but she was know where to be seen so he had to give up and we went home after a long day i got home at midnight and we had to be back at the service park at 5:30 which i was really looking forward to. (the previous statement contains sarcasm)
Day 4
When i got to the service park it was still dark and i was half dead. The first thing we would have to do was check the cars tyres as they left. By this stage we were almost like professionals and we checked all the cars out with ease. Then we were told that we had to go to Newtown to check the cars tyres when they got their so we all got into Dan car with the splitter making a break for freedom (Dan had still failed to get Amy's autograph but was still confident of getting it (his obsession was getting slightly disturbing). Just before we arrived in Newtown we decided we had a bit of time to kill so we stopped for a McDonald's where we met a rally fan who started chatting to is he said he had been following the cars around all week. but for us at this moment we had not seen any actual rallying. After our meal we went into the centre of Newtown and waited for the rally cars. While we were waiting we started playing a game of guess the music and singer but with most of the music being from the 1980s and early 90s this meant Dan had a big advantage but it ended up being a battle between me and jack. Sadly our battle was cut short by the arrival of the rally cars at this point we were split up I stayed in the centre of Newtown and everyone else went to the service park on the edge of town. I had to check all the tyres but as the cars needed to be through the time control as quickly as possible so I only got about 30 seconds on each car. After I had finished with all the cars I met up with everyone in the service park and we set off back to Deeside. When we got back to Deeside we were told they only needed 1 of us to stay and since me and Dan had stayed the night before jack volunteered to stay to check the cars in. (To summarise after 3 days helping on the rally we had lost a lot of sleep and had some very long days and had a lot of good fun and Dan was still continuing on his mission to get Amy's autograph)
Day 5
We had another early start and it would be another busy morning of checking the cars tyres and the chances of dan getting Amy's autograph were running out as he was unsuccessful in getting it before they left for the day. After we had finished checking tyres I was sent down to Corris to check the cars tyres after the cars had finished their morning stages. When the cars started to arrive it was nice and relaxed their was no rush to get the tyres checked and I even got to have a little chat with Ogier. But as more cars started to arrive it got more chaotic as the cars were parked in 3 separate lines and it was very tricky to keep a track of which cars I had checked and which ones I hadn't but I managed to check them all without any mistakes and them we were going to head to Chirk castle to watch a stage and it was where I would met up with the others. As we started getting closer to Chirk the traffic get very bad as people tried to get to the castle. At this point I decided that I would walk the rest as it didn't look far on the map (I might have got it slightly wrong) so as I started walking past the long line of traffic in my scrutineers kit people started asking what the hold up was and even offered to give me a lift I declined and continued walking for at least 4-5 miles before I got to the castle it appeared I had arrived just in time as just as I got to the stage the 1st rally car showed up. But their was no sign of Dan or the others and my phone was running low on battery and if they didn't arrive soon I wouldn't be able to contact them so I stood their at watched the rally their was a massive crowd and the atmosphere was brilliant then I was able to find jack but not the other 2 which became a bigger problem as my phone had just died and jack didn't have any of their phone numbers. So a plus was I was no longer alone and the bad point was we still had no idea where Dan was with no way to contact him which meant we had no way home. So we decided to go and watch the rally. Them we got some good luck as my phone decide it did have some battery left so we were able to contact Dan and he was able to find us but now their was no sign of Brandon (this was getting ridiculous) so we decided to just wait where we were and hope Brandon found us. Which he did and we decided that we should get back to Deeside because we had another early start in the morning.
Day 6
So began our final day on the rally and we were all tired as we prepared to check the tyre again and this would be Dan's last chance to get Amy's autograph and he wasn't going to miss it as we were checking the tyres he ran round to Amy's side of the car and asked if she would sign his pass she said yes and Dan had succeeded if his task and since she had already got a pen in hand me and Brandon also got her autograph. Jack missed out but he would get Ogiers autograph later that day. So after we had checked all the tyres jack was chosen to go to the end of a stage and check the tyres as they finished. But for the rest of us the rally was over and the other scrutineers said thank you for the help and gave us some money for helping out and we got some free stuff from the teams. So our rally experience was over it had been great fun but very hard work I hope I can help out on next years event and get more involved in rally.
and so Tom...........
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