What went wrong and what went right?

[ferny]

I want to know what the driver error was.
"It's today??? I thought it started tomorrow! Shite!"

[Raider]

I don't think 6 is that high actually given that there have been 100+ entries in the last 2 or 3 RBRRs so that is only 6 out of 300+  (2% of entries).

Clarification of the detail -

Diesel on corner     2
Spun off road avoiding deer     1
Blinded by oncoming traffic     1
Hit flock of sheep! Broken headlamps and smashed fan     1
Off road near West Auckland     1
Total Result     6

Livestock and wildlife are a hazard that are a bit difficult to take into account but - the purpose of the analysis is so that the club can give advice in future.

It may well be that we give guidance that once in more rural areas of Northern England and Scotland be aware of this extra hazard.

[Raider]

ferny wrote:

I want to know what the driver error was.
"It's today??? I thought it started tomorrow! Shite!"

Actually it was "crew error" - to save embarassment I won't name names but the detail was

"Diesel put into fuel tank" :X

[thescrapman]

Raider wrote:

Actually it was "crew error" - to save embarassment I won't name names but the detail was

"Diesel put into fuel tank" :X

You don't need to name names now... :-)

Don't forget that each time we cover approx 250,000 miles between us.

so 6 incidents in 3/4 million miles is understandable, but not necessarily acceptable.

2 of them were down to wild life and 2 down to the same patch of diesel in the middle of nowhere that had no logical reason for being there.

So that is 2 incidents in 750,000 miles.

Cheers

Colin

[cook1e]

cook1e wrote:

Not sure whether my retirement in the GT6 counted as an accident or suspension failure in the stats? The suspension damage was caused by an accident, but the failure happened 200 miles later?

Ah, so seeings that one of the accidents was "spun off road avoiding deer" that must be our team and our retirement was put down to an accident rather than a suspension failure. It could have been classed as either but the deer incident was certainly the root cause of the later suspension failure so probably right that it's put down to an accident despite the fact that we retired 200 miles further down the road.

I agree it's worth highlighting that wildlife can be an issue in the highlands and other rural areas. I be happy for our incident to be used as an example in the briefing for the next RBRR. Not that I think we would have done anything different, the deer was pretty close when it ran across the road and we wer'nt travelling at a very excessive speed at the time on the A9 due to weather conditions. It would be good to advise people to keep their speed down in the highlands at night though if the weather is good, if we had been travelling at say 80mph+, which is not unheard of on the A9, then the incident could have been much worse.

[Tim Bancroft]

Accidents have not been that high.

Retirements, def high.

Accidents:
94: TR8 kissed the barrier, continued
04: Spitfire: Diff failure resulting in spin. Car written off
08: Spitfire: Roll after oversteer spin on diesel. Car written off
08: Dolmite: Spin on diesel (Same corner as last) and glanced off on-coming car. Car repaired.
10: GT6 spin and off the road, wet road and possible co-driver  inexperience off UK roads. Car status no known
10: GT6: Deer on A9: Car damaged but repairable
10: Dolomite: Sheep incident off route. Car written off.

However until 2004 no car involved in a serious incident.
No one has been badly injured.
Something like 880 crews have successfully completed the event, thats 1.76million miles!
Surely if passing through roads that pass through moorland or the like, one would look for wildlife, however Cookies and Steve Needham's incidents could not be avoided, not driver error. BTW I have killed two deer in 30 years of driving, both in the 'Greenbelt'.

I do not think the above stats are unacceptable. Since taking over the organisation of the RBRR I have attempted to increase the safety of the event, however some of that duty must be borne by the entrants.

There has been some poor and unfair criticsm of the RBRR on another Triumph forum, thankfully the moderator closed the discussion down.

I had to have a 'chat' with one crew about the quality of their driving following complaints by other entrants and some driving I witnessed. Never had to do that before. I will not divulge who they were as they were apologetic and no further incidents happened.

The biggest criticsm of the event and something that is justifiable, is that Novice crews were not aware of the pace of the event. I will address this, however I do think that all crews do have a certain amount of responsibility to obtain as much information as possible about the RBRR before entering. Also the Road Book does show all the speeds that are needed and of course it is simple maths to work out the average speed, 2000 miles divided by say 44 hours (4 hrs: Lunch and stops) = 45.5mph. Also I want all crews to feel part of the event, new and old and therefore I don't like to single out groups.

One interesting point, yet again the big saloons were the most reliable cars on the event.

[ferny]

When driving I asked what the average speed I should be doing was. Found them all to be easy to maintain and often gained a fair whack of time without speeding.

I'm surprised Steve's Dolly has been written off, it didn't sound that bad. How was the sheep? ;)

[GT6boy]

ferny wrote:

I want to know what the driver error was.
"It's today??? I thought it started tomorrow! Shite!"

;D

[GT6boy]

Novice crews attending the Drivers meeting should almost be a pre-requisite. The detail and reinforcing of protocol(quiet and adherence to limits through Welsh towns at night etc. ) is vital to avoiding learning the hard way. You don't want to 'nanny people', but equally: if it saves breakdowns/accidents/incidents? How about getting a novice from this year to say a few words at the next drivers meeting?

This isn't 'The Cannonball Run' but, the quality of the roads and the standards of driving i saw make it one of the reasons I keep my car :). I honestly don't think i'd bother keeping it, if it weren't for the prospect of doing the 2012 in it. I was constantly pleased at the ability of the drivers of the smaller engined cars to keep up the momentum, particularly in Wales.

We set out on time and made time on most sections, aside from the bit to Pimperne(can't be helped- traffic), but we still came back within the allotted window. No maniacal driving, just enjoying the hard work of those who'd planned such a great route 8).

[thescrapman]

ferny wrote:

. How was the sheep? ;)

Very tasty apparently.

[thescrapman]

Tim

I seem to remember in 1990 there was a TR7 that went off road in Scotland and bent his suspension and wrecked the wheel. He did carry on though.

As long as there is not a pattern indicating a lack of care then the incidents are just that. None of your 7 could have been prevented as far as I can tell, so as long as every entrant continues to show professionalism then there is not a problem.

The requirement to maintain a pace is something that does catch out some newcomers. This was the first time we have managed to do that, and it was only by me nagging my 2 cohorts to get a move on.. :-)

The only bit of "pressing on" we did was me on the A74M / M6. That allowed us to arrive at Lancaster back within the Control Opening Window having left Conon Bridge late and just scraped into Stirling.

Starting on time helped a lot mind!

I would still think hard about doing it in a smalled engined 4-cyl as the route is now too long and twisty in places to do it comfortably. You can loose so much time stuck behind other traffic you need to be able to overtake occassionally.

Cheers

Colin

[Deleted User]

Quote:

10: Dolomite: Sheep incident off route. Car written off.

I f you must chase after a sheep, do it on route!  The more attractive ones can be found following the route in the roadbook.  I speak from experience. :)

Don't go off route.  You never know who these sheep might be or who they've been with before!

No wonder the car was written off!

Jim.

[SteveJP]

As a newbie to the RBRR it didn't occur to me to take the A1 or M11, I just thought the roadbook (and Nigel) knew best and followed it religiously to Blyth. During the run at most controls we tended to arrive in the middle to end of the projected times.

Our average speed according to my Sat Nav over the whole event was 49.2mph - not bad for a small 4cyl!  and were driving for 43 hours (excluding stops)

We did cut a quicker route from Monmouth on the way to Gordano which was just as well because my alternator had packed up and I didn't notice until we got there.

I think the routes just right for a small cylinder triumph - no reason not to use one, just because they're not as butch(or comfortable) as a big saloon - having said that I do intend to use the Stag on the 10CR 8)

[Hogie]

Hi Folks,
             another newbie here. Followed the route except for a strange experience near West Aukland. Kept missing a left turn in a small village and circumnavigated it twice. Eventually the missus phoned through (she had been tracking us on Instamap) to ask what we were doing.
Arrival at Blythe was gob smacking - travelled well all the way up only to find the place packed out.

Roger

[thescrapman]

I think we need a secret passage control on the A10.

That will catch the buggers out!

Get to Blythe and find they are a signature short already...

:-)

[James]

If you have to cheat your way to Blythe then you have issues :)

[mikeyb]

Jason wrote:

There was no major route cutting,
We stayed on the route, no short cuts at all.

in 2008, we passed you heading south on the A9 "avoiding" the slippery Glencoe bit where a couple of people came to grief. It was an official "make up time" alternative though. :-)

As Colin said, we did the full route this year (apart from the A10 traffic lights near the Plough). The first section through Royston etc was actually quite fun to drive and cut out a good section of boring dual carriageway, not to mention the A1 roadworks and 90% of the A14 Average Speed cams.

[mikeyb]

Randal wrote:

I was truly impressed by the organization of the event with only one exception, the weather, please can you have a word about this and get something sorted in 2 years time?

I was rather pleased overall by the weather, bearing in mind the forecast was atrocious for the whole weekend as we went around!  In the event, rain stopping at Blyth, clear run for rest of night and sun for most of Sat - top marks.  Glencoe is always raining, so don't count this, it dried up soon after Stirling anyway.  Short shower at Lancaster (always raining there too!) then another clear run all the way through Wales - fantastic!  Bristol to Breakfast, well less said - bit of a bummer but then dry again with a bit of sun on sunday - excellent result I think!

[steve_1360]

Ferny, two of the sheep didn't make it and my boot was full so i had to leave them behind :-/

The Dolly didn't sound bad until you looked and realised every panel on the front was bent. The amount it would cost in bits i could buy a better one. But still waiting for conformation form the insurance but my guess is it will be written off. The off route bit was to Dunnet Head so just a couple of miles too far! We went last year and was not the only Triumph in the car park.
It must of been my weekend as we were first on scene of cookies off and helped push him back on the road!

After doing it in the Herald twice, my advice is as like some of the others, don't mess about at the stops, get on with the driving!

[Radders]

MWG445 wrote:

Another thing we noticed was that crews arrived at the control stops, Blyth in particular, and swanned about like they had all the time in the world to waste.

Lost minutes at Blyth would take hours to make up unless crews did silly speeds to keep up.

Crews should perhaps be reminded not to loiter at control stops and cut out the "fannying around".

Jim.

We noticed that too. We had already decided to keep cracking on as soon as we had our road book signed. That way, if you do get too tired to continue and need sleep, you have a bit of time spare to do it.

Also if you do have a have breakdown and need assistance, its better to be up the front of the pack so you have more cars behind you that may be able to help.  :)

[shedmonkey]

Homer and I have been developing a weather machine in the shed but it failed around Bristol when the elastic band snapped-sorry everyone

[Tim Bancroft]

Really good thread this one, lots of interesting comments.

[Raider]

jcarruthers wrote:

Martin -  really need those split in to percentages of entrants though. Even then it probably doesn't tell the whole story.

number of Spitfire failures / number of Spitfire entrants

That's true but I don't have the info or actually the inclination to pursue getting it :-/

No one should read anything into the data about specific car reliability - for example, only one Atlas has been entered and it failed to finish - a 100% failure rate!

Another example could be my last entry in my TR7 16V - if I had included that info there were so many things went wrong it would have raised the TR7stats massively all by itself! I didn't include it though cos we didn't actually retire :)

[Raider]

OK - I do have the entrants list for 2010 so I have produced the info for 2010

Car     Retirement        Entered     %
GT6              3            9     33.33%
2000/2500      2          30     6.67%
Spitfire      2          17     11.76%


Statistically though, the numbers are too low to be significant striclty speaking :-/
For eaxample, it looks from this that GT6s should be avoided for this event but 2 of the retirements where due to accidents!

Both of the Spitfire reirements were down to Ford 5 speed gearbox failures (I wouldn't draw any conclusion form that though)

Maybe, just maybe - only 2 retirements from 30 entered of the big saloons is significant ;)

[thescrapman]

RussellBanyard wrote:

Dave and I are contemplating the Mayflower option, just to get one on the list. I think it may need some mods though.

Here you go...

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250708347297

I'll help you with a trailer.

:-)

Colin