As a 'newbie' for this year, I thought the event lived up to expectations. We thoroughly enjoyed it. Yes we nearly came to grief when our rear lights failed and we had to do a temporary rewire. This lost us an hour or more and the sweeper car stopped for us. We got going again and didn't see the sweeper again, but we were aware we were running late and this did put the pressure on a bit. By Carter Bar, we knew we had cars behind us, by Knockhill we were starting to pull back some time, but only a little. At JOG, the 2hr stop allowed us to pull back time with a shorter stop. We still had time for breakfast, but left after an hour. We also took a slightly shorter route back to Skiach to make up time and give us a more relaxed drive. We had time for a coffee and refuel before arriving at the checkpoint about on time. We hadn't realised that the more experienced crews were arriving early at most checkpoints and then having a rest whilst waiting for the cp to open, we tried to aim for earliest arrival time, which if we had problems pushed us back. Having said that we were fortunate not to have any more mechanical or electrical problems. Preparation for the event, I think was key to this, I had spent 11months working on the car. The last thing I wanted was for the car to break down. If anything might be suspect on such a long event, it was checked, serviced or replaced. Our problems were more navigational, due to tiredness, believing the satnav which sometimes conflicted with the route instructions late at night, but this is a learning experience for ourselves, don't always trust the satnav. Time was lost waiting for breakfast at Lands end, perhaps a longer time allowance is needed here, also the traffic back across towards the end. We also got lost trying to find the correct entrance to Knebworth, again the satnav and tiredness creeping in. We did get there in the end, albeit 1 1/2 hrs late, but we did get there and the sense of achievement was immense, emotional even.
Would I change anything? Probably not a lot. Some timings maybe (lands end), but overall the event worked. A credit to all the organisers. If it was too easy, it wouldn't be the same challenge, it wouldn't be the RBRR and the sense of achievement wouldn't be as great, it would just be another car event. I learned of this event over 20 years ago. It took this long to build up courage to do it. Finally we did it.