LE JOG 2005

MG wins LE JOG
A team of three MGBs have won the premier award on LE JOG, Britain's longest historic rally. The LE JOG (Land's End to John O'Groats Reliability Trial) has become a legend amongst the rallying fraternity and no wonder! The aim is to drive from one end of Great Britain to the other on minor roads, some quite remote, in just three and a half days, a journey of some 1,500 miles. The challenge comes from several elements: the weather in early December, which may be anything from bright sun to bitter freezing fog, the task of plotting and driving the navigation and regularity sections without losing time and the skill of negotiating the manoeuvrability tests along the way.

This year the crews faced heavy rain which flooded roads and threatened to make fords impassable. One Maserati owner is looking at an engine rebuild as a result, but the MGs kept going and were among the 35 finishers out of 49 starters. The MG crews were Colin Evans/Shon Gosling, James Vinall/Michael Kunz and Chris Hunt Cooke/David Kirkham.

Chris Hunt Cooke has a rally prepared MGB in addition to the V8 Roadster and is a regular competitor in the annual LE JOG event. This year was wet, very wet, with deep floods in Cornwall as Chris relates but they picked up the Marque Team Trophy and a bronze medal too. (7.12.05)
V8 Register - MG Car Club


Rally prepared MGB of Chris Hunt Cook wading through deep water at a ford in Cornwall - the rest of the journey was spent sitting on plastic supermarket carrier bags!
(Photo: Octane Magazine)
LE JOG 2005 report from Chris Hunt Cooke
I am safely home after a very soggy LE JOG. Fortunately the snow tyres I borrowed from Ron Gammons turned out to be excellent rain tyres and coped well with roads covered in mud and crud washed off the fields and overlaid with leaves, and even managed the forest tracks. Not long after the start of the event, the route was flooded for half a mile in the Exe valley, so badly so that we had to sign a warning from the organisers. We got through that with a slow speed and plenty of revs, but the water came into the car and the seats soaked it up like sponges, so it was sitting on plastic bags thereafter.

It was good to see Geoff St John Mitchell when we reached Machynlleth - he is a fellow trustee on the Douglas Mickel Trust. Fortunately I had an expert navigator on board with David Kirkham - I had to force him to change into dry trousers at Magor, when all he wanted to do was plot the route! For the first time ever on the Le JOG event I did not get lost in Wales. The car was going brilliantly and certainly did not deserve to be reversed into a stone wall the way I did at one stage.

After the three hours sleep at Chester, now allowed by the softer style LE JOG, we crossed to the other side of the Pennines, where it was mercifully slightly drier, for more regularities and tests. After a night in Middlesborough (sets the pulse racing, doesn't it?) we headed for more water at Stanhope ford, and into Scotland for more lengthy regularities and a night navigation section, involving two more fords to re-soak the interior. The car then took revenge

 for the stone wall incident by losing the heel of the contact breaker cam follower, and therefore all power, in the midst of a regularity section and then I showed it who was in charge by going off the road on a tight bit of moorland. I kept going and regained the road, but facing the wrong way! I then got bogged down trying to turn round! Fortunately two Swiss novices who didn't know any better stopped and very kindly helped pulled us out. On, on, to the remoter areas of Scotland, and eventually breakfast at Lybster, and then to the finish. With photos and tall stories at John O'Groats, the hotel was very welcome at Wick after 1,440 miles of competition driving.

After sleeping all day, it was off to the heady excitement of Wick's premier nightspot, and dinner and the prizegiving. And there were indeed some prizes to collect. The LE JOG scoring system is fiendishly complicated, but the premier award is the Marque Team Trophy, and then there are other team awards and medals and class awards for individual performance. Our MG team had lead the Marque Team listings since the second set of interim results and we retained and increased that lead as lesser marques fell away, so MG won the premier award for the first time for some years. Individually we won a bronze medal.

The following morning the car was covered in ice, inside from the damp as well as outside! I also discovered the problem of a waterlogged leather bonnet strap frozen solid. Then followed a nice little run home - some 650 miles or so. The car is now in the garage with a dehumidifier working flat out! At the moment I am saying NEVER AGAIN, but I have said that before! (11.12.05)
Update: Chris Hunt Cooke reports "there is now a report available on the event. Just go to http://www.hero.org.uk/lejog/index.htm and click "Report and photos 2005". Lots of pictures of Volvos, including a team photo. No idea why, but at least we got a mention in the text! (14.12.05)

http://www.hero.org.uk/lejog/index.htm

and click "Report and photos 2005"

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