Day 8 – Thursday 9th May 2013
Today is the start of the IJ proper so, after a fairly leisurely start and breakfast, we took the Mini round for scrutineering, which involves ensuring everything works as it should; of course, as you would expect, it passed without a hitch. In addition, you are also required to show all of your required documentation, ie, both driving licences, vehicle insurance, breakdown insurance, MOT certificate (which obviously doesn’t apply to us being from the Isle of Man). After all that was sorted, we were presented with our official number stickers ’21’ to go on the door decals, and also our hats, a green one for me, this being only my 2nd IJ, but a black one for Ian as it’s his 3rd IJ and therefore he is now viewed as an “experienced” Jobber! We were also given our dreaded Road Book, which has all of the information in it for our various routes over the days of the event, written in the style of ‘tulip’ diagrams that look more like hieroglyphics and sometimes equally as difficult to understand!
At 11.30am, we all gathered for our first Briefing, after which we were given some lunch, then off in convoy for a short drive to Imola race circuit, apparently best known for where the Formula 1 driver Ayrton Senna had his fatal crash. The first of our ‘Special Stages’ were held in what was like a big car park here, which involved 4 separate tests around cones, going over a very precisely timed start and finish line in various sequences, all of which had to be completed without stopping or hitting any cones in exactly the prescribed times of 20, 24 and 25 seconds – easier said than done, and the final one involved some reversing too, again in precisely 25 seconds, no more, no less! Penalties for every 100th of a second over or under the times prescribed are allocated – no pressure!
We then went on to the race circuit and did 2 laps of the circuit following the lead car, all at very respectable pace and no overtaking allowed, so no silliness! We also stopped part way round the 2nd lap to see the monument to the memory of Ayrton Senna. After finishing at the circuit, we went to re-fuel, then back to the hotel for a leisurely remainder of the afternoon. The temperatures at the race circuit had got as high as 30.5DegC, so we were all rather warm, some took to the hotel pool for a quick dip which was apparently rather on the chilly side! After a relaxed afternoon, we gathered for dinner at 8.00pm. The results from today’s special stages were published whilst we were at dinner and, guess what! We’re in 1st place after today’s 4 Special Stages, happy days! And not by a small margin either, we’re the only team that managed to keep the penalty points less than 100 over the 4 special stages. Considering being out by only 1 second either way gets 100 points, that’s pretty impressive if we say so ourselves, less than 1/4 second accuracy over each of 4 stages, not bad! Only trouble now is, we’ve set the standard, maintaining that position throughout the event could be challenging, no pressure!
Tomorrow is a very early start, first car leaves at 8.00am exactly, our start time is 08.03.30hrs precisely, and it looks like it’s going to be a long day as we’re not back until 8pm in the evening, so some beauty sleep is calling, we’ll dream of lifting the Italian Job winners’ trophy!!! Maybe, in our dreams ….
