Neil Raven's view on our Albemarle Targa

Neil & Claire Raven at Albemarle

Our first weekend back to the targa world saw us traveling up to sunny Newcastle for Whickham District Motor Club’s  Albemarle event. Scrutineering was on Saturday so we headed north, basking in glorious winter sunshine which was kindly arranged by the god of North East sun, Alan Hawdon😂 Scrutineering was straight forward although Sticky did give a hint of what was to come as she refused to start to go to the scrutineer, even though she’d just driven the best part of 2 hours up the A1 without so much as a splutter🥴

A quick tickle under the dashboard on her aftermarket wiring and she jumped into life, a bit like Mrs Rave does😂😂😂 After scrutineering we headed off to B&M for a shop then to Costa for an extremely pretentious Americano with oat milk in our own cups to get that extra bean! It also meant we could use their bogs and tables to mark up our test diagrams. I had two wee’s to get the maximum benefit😂💦

From here we went to our digs, the Black Bull in Wylam, which seemed ok and the room looked recently refurbished. Bags dropped off we went to meet team Procter and Savage for a fab meal and laugh at the Blackbird in Ponteland. The food and company were excellent but bed called and we went back to the Black Bull, which had turned in to the local sitting down nightclub 😂 The music was blaring even though the average age was well above the average life expectancy 🥴😂🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺 We headed to bed as we knew we had a long day ahead, it was 10.45pm. At 2am the music and alcohol fuelled signing and loud conversation stopped😂😂 Jeez, if I’d been in a party mood it would have been superb, but I was in sensible Neily mode and needed my beauty sleep if I was going to approach the targa with a clear, positive attitude 😂😂

A very frosty morning greeted us as we left the pub at 7.30am. Normally we are very conscious of the rally noises coming out of Sticky’s performance’ exhaust, so take it steady with minimum revs, not today😂😂😂 She started nicely but needed at least 5 minutes to defrost then the non power assisted steering meant lots of revs and too and fro ing were required to turn round!! I must have used a gallon of fuel to do a 3 point turn, rattling the pub windows 😂😂 Dire Straights Money for Nothing played on the Peugeot accelerator pedal in Gti minor is a wonderful sound😂😂😂 🎵 🎶

As the kettle in the room served no purpose other than to light up the corner it lived in with its ‘on’ button, we had to go to Maccy D’s for our morning coffee before heading off to the test venue, Albemarle barracks on an old airfield West of Newcastle. The god of North East sun had forgotten to turn the thermostat up for our arrival and it was frikin freezing, the sort of freezing the gets through your Mountain Warehouse 50% off coat and to your sleep deprived bones!🥶 

The Wickham team had laid out some superb tests for us along with 90 marshals to observe the cones and sign our time sheets at the passage controls. Our sincere thanks goes out to every single one of you who stood out in that biting weather today! You are heroes and deserve volunteers of the year! I hope our attempts at driving in gripless surfaces warmed your hearts and made you feel you could have done a much better job than the feckless idiots cocking up the tests infront of you🤣🤣🤣

In our defence it was very very slippery and a line of 40 solid generators tends to reel in the most confident of drivers as we slalomed our way up next to them😂 It felt extremely slow but there was evidence of what could happen all around. Mostly the rear end of Kevin Stones MR2 which used the perimeter fence to slow down for a turn🥴 There was also plenty of cone abuse going on, with bits of red and black plastic littering certain sections, mostly those covered in ice.

We had a fairly steady morning with two runs of four tests completed with only one incident where we entered a stop box backwards after under estimating the grip levels. We did stop in the box, had a little shunt, then exited the correct direction with just a little tap of a cone. Imagine our surprise when we were awarded a 30 second penalty for our display of skill! We did challenge it but were told the penalty was for being out of control entering the stop box. We couldn’t really argue with that so accepted the penalty😂

The other issue seemed to be that test 4 didn’t like us. The first run we ripped a big hole in a brand new tyre! I was holding back the tears as I fingered the torn plys of perfect rubber🥴😂😂 Then on the next run, Sticky decided she couldn’t be bothered running and turned herself off, requiring another reach around and tickle under the Peugeot plastic dash🥴 Intermittent running didn’t help our time for that test and when we got back to service I removed the plastic cover and set too fault finding the problem by swearing at it😂😂 A loose wire was found so I crimped it up with the pliers and stuck it back on the switch. No further issues were had. The next run of test 4 saw me have a brain fart and needed to back up to go round a cone the correct side. Fortunately that was the last of the stupidity, before lunch 😂😂

After lunch the tests were reversed and two joined together to make two longer tests from the four used in the morning. Enter the, ‘I’m not going to stop at the stop line’ phase of my day. Over the two tests I incurred just short of 2 minutes in penalties by arriving at the stop lines too fast. You must stop astride these lines which requires a balanced approach of speed and control, my burger and chip lunch dictated otherwise and we were slippin’ and a sliddin’ past every blummin stop line😂 At this point I also set a fastest test time but as I slid past a stop line this was only theoretical as I gained a 30 second penalty for being a silly😂

While it may seem we had turned up to do skids and arrive in stop boxes backwards, we were actually on the hunt for a pot, historic experts. Unfortunately, so were Michael and Josh Davison in their Mk1 MR2, who had also had a few run in’s with cones and stop lines but had been ahead of us all day and going into the last two tests were 28 seconds infront. These last two tests were all of the tests joined together, each 4 1/2 miles in distance and about 13 minutes in time to complete. We needed to be quick and penalty free👌

14 seconds a test was a tall ask but Sticky was running superbly, Claire Raven was on fire with the notes and the passage control process and I was ready to give it a go😂 The frost had gone and on the first run through everything worked nicely. Sticky was gliding through the cones and scrabbling for grip at every corner. Mrs Rave was clear in her instructions and I’d got to grips with how the car was moving. The first run was clean and quick. Unfortunately, no results were put up but we knew Michael would be on it as well so the final run had to be clean. Which it was until we pirouetted towards the back end of the test, losing valuable time removing the edges off the teeth in the gearbox trying to find reverse at 9,000 rpm 😂😂

A spirited drive to the stop line saw us finish penalty free, but had the 10 seconds or so sorting out that spin scuppered us? A nervous 1/2 hour wait in plummeting temperatures ended with the results showing us finishing 28 seconds ahead of Michael and Josh to gain 1st Historic and 6th overall👌👍 A great end to a brilliant weekend and a good start to our 2025 season🥳

Ali Procter and Lynsey Procter took a break from trying sell their mo ho and took the overall win, a minute and a half ahead of Chris Dodds and Peter Gibson who won the 1st Modern expert in the MX5. Carl Tuer and George Farrow took 1st Modern Novice and best prepared car in their lovely Astra. Roger Burkill took biggest grin and best quick release steering wheel award😂 Adam Burkill was keeping him going in the right direction and got his dad airborne at one point😂😂

A brilliant day which ran smoothly and efficiently. Straight forward tests with a few subtle changes to keep everyone on their toes. A big thank you to the organisers for all their hard work and to all the marshals for their dedication for making the day happen 👏 We are just coming down from a celebratory Maccy D’s ‘large’ coffee and chocolate cookie to keep us awake on the journey down the A1. Sticky cruised home without a single hesitation so I guess the swearing worked😂👍