Diary of a Rookie Nav

Subaru Bruma Belfast Rally 2008

Facts:


• Car: 1600 VW Citi Golf


• Driver: Christoff Snyders


• Navigator: Celesté Snyders


• Winners of Class S2; 11th overall at the Belfast Rally. Woohoo!


• Christoff and Celesté are siblings (who still really like each other after their first rally)


• Christoff and Celesté are both single, but very hard to please

Lying in bed Saturday night, post-Belfast, in that zone just before losing consciousness, I was pondering one of those deep and life-altering questions that can keep philosophers and intellectuals busy ‘till Kingdom come…

“Can this much fun be legal?!”

Christoff and I had such a blast on our first rally together! Reading all the post-mortem’s, makes our Rally look as smooth and easy like a Sunday morning.

 

A major contributor to the relatively stress-free run has to be our awesome service crew! At Execuracing Development & Service Centre you are not just another customer my friend… your car becomes the object of their affection. If only some marriages had this kind of commitment! Whilst you were all bronzing your buns on the beach over the festive season, these guys were rebuilding our Golf. When you came back from holiday and bored all your friends with your happy snappies… we were doing the exact same thing… only we had an album with before and after shots of all sorts of fascinating things like pistons, crankshafts and splash plates… they made us our own personal file can you believe it?! THANK YOU x infinity + 2 to Jan, Dewald, Ralph, Nico and the team for your service excellence and for making the car purr like a kitten on catnip!

For the first time in Christoff’s rally history, his car was ready 2 weeks before the event. Just enough time to take his sister for a spin to test her ability to keep her breakfast down. This little experiment happened at the Greg Godrich Rally Navigator School. What an awesome way to get into the swing of things! Greg, you did forget to mention a few very, very important things though… 1. That I will not be able to sleep… at all… the night before the Rally, 2. That I’ll suddenly develop TB (tiny bladder) and 3.To always, always wear a sport-bra!

So there I was on the morning of The Rally, not exactly a picture of tranquility… everything I’ve learnt about handling all the admin so that the Driver can relax flew out the window the moment I got my shaky little claws on the roadbook & routenotes. Grinning now and then for the paparazzi (alias PapaChristo), nervously going through the amendments in the roadbook and comparing them with the pacenotes. I noticed we had to go to documentation after stage 4 for them to capture our times on the system. Now, this is good thinking guys! It speeds up the process at the end of the day. We should make this a general rule. (They didn’t give me a sweetie or any bonus points for being a good navi and reading my instructions, but those warm smiles of appreciation made it all worth while!)

 

Christoff took it easy in the first 3 stages (as easy as a boy can take winding roads littered with wicked rocks and permission to break every speed limit where he possibly can). Helping me to keep up with his pace with the occasional “next”, “wait” or “ugh” (when we hit that double caution dip 5mins before I tell him about it). We also scored a few seconds after I told him to “put foot boet, flying finish coming up” and almost realized too late that I skipped a few instructions and we were heading for a TL9! Saint Christoff saw this coming and calmly just asked me to “just gimme that instruction again?”. Gotta love da Brova!

 

We think we got groovy much sooner than expected and doing the repeat stages, knocked 42sec, 41sec and 48sec respectively off our original stage times. Just when we were really getting into it, the rally was over and much to our parents’ utter relief; we were home safe in parc ferme. Waves of gratitude washed over me as I passed all the battered & bruised metal bodies. We busted a few rims and a petrol pipe, but this time, this glorious time, we finished a rally without major damage… on those rocky roads an absolute miracle.

So herewith the acceptance speech I spared you all at the event.

 

Belfast, you will always hold a special place in my heart. Thanks to all the organizers and sponsors and marshals – bless your sainted hearts for standing in that heat and doing it with such great spirit! Speaking of which – the vibe amongst the competitors was awesome! It was great to see all those who participated in Navi School again – Dylan thanks so much for driving all that way just to come and spectate! Meeting all the legends whom I always just cheered on from the sidelines was such an honour – Pierre and Natie, you rawk! Johan you’re a biscuit! Greg, thank you for teaching us the tricks of the trade and for your fabulous support. Schalk, thanks so much for letting me borrow your skanky helmet… that alone gives me motivation to beg for sponsorship. Megan, thanks for your friendly encouragement and the full body massages of the future. Oom Jannie, thanks for your pacenotes – I’ll do them justice as we go on. Dave Ledbitter – thanks for the cool pics! (Thank goodness we didn’t have to push through that water, I would not have wanted to ruin my brand-new-blue-suede-Puma’s!) HUGE thank you to our sponsors: Prosperity, Sabertek and Limestone – may your businesses flourish! Thanks to Mom and Dad for always being our biggest fans.

 

I love you all and all I want is world-peace!

 

Catch ya at Carletonville!

 

Greetings, CS Rallyteam