In which the Mini shows just how fast it can be even in the wet.
As I mentioned yesterday finished with a most lavish and enjoyable wine tasting. Setting off just slightly too early for most people this morning, we came to the second element in the WEROs’ (Wily Endurance Rally Organisers) armoury, which is a Test. A Test allows you to drive your GOB/GPCC (grotty old bus/gleamingly pretty classic car) as fast as possible on private land, such as a racetrack, testing track, farmland etc. It still has to comply with international rally rules which requires a maximum possible speed of 60mph. Obviously in the Mini that wouldn’t require much in the way of devious route organisation as it takes us quite a while to get up to 60mph, but you must remember that we have some pretty serious Porsches on this event whose 0-60 time is 5.6 seconds compared to the Mini’s 10 and whose top speed is 180mph compared to the Mini’s theoretical 90. So the WEROs reach for The Deadly Cone Of Doom to set out a wiggly course, or they set the tests up in places which already have quite tight corners such as a large-scale kart track.
Day 2 had three tests, and to be honest we didn’t do too badly, considering that we are in a class with a Tuthill-prepared Porsche which is not short of a hp or two. The road bits were less interesting, because of the unavoidable fact that it is a long way across the Po plain from the Med coast to the Italian lakes, where the rally stopped at the extraordinarily grand Grand Hotel Tremezzo overlooking lake Como. You know it is Grand because there are many signs to it all the way along the lake-edge road: Grand Hotel Tremezzo 22km, etc. Rather reminiscent of the Fabulous Caverns in America, although with rather more in the way of linen towels and carefully-coordinated bathroom accessories.
It also piddled down mightily with rain, in fact before the session on the Pirelli racetrack it rained so hard that the Mini ended up in the middle of an ankle-deep lake. How do we know how deep the lake was? Because Sid and Doris had got out of the car for a bit of course recce-ing from a sheltered terrace just before it started raining and… Well, it was just as well that we were both wearing deck shoes and that the Mini has a truly impressive heater. And the good news is that we have a Tin Top on our car – other rally members had to resort to bailing their cars out.
Anyway, we drove up to Como through the continuing rain and the rally was given some allocated parking in the terrace opposite the hotel, as you can see from the view from my balcony overlooking the lake she mentions casually
. Bad news is that the Mini’s starter motor has been jamming randomly but increasingly frequently, so while Doris lounged around in her Grand Room, Sid and the mechanics were outside in the rain trying to fix it. Later on they were inside in the hotel’s garage trying to fix it. Still later on they agreed that they’d done what they could, and Owen is DHL-ing a new one out to meet us in Cortina in a few days time.
How did we do on the tests? We only lost 43s to the Porsche. Ha ha! And everyone says that the Mini looks extremely cute on the road and is the best fun to watch on the tracks, so nuts to you big boy.