National Rally

3-4 July 1993

Not a Camping & Beer weekend. A 24 hour run around the whole of the country, (Actually, mostly just central England), visiting control checkpoints in order to register a pre-set distance, to win an award. I did it in 1992, achieving the maximum allowed number of controls/miles, but swore to never do it again. I was falling asleep on the way home, despite having had a kip at the finish stage.

In 1993, my club, West Middlesex Amateur MCC, was designated to run one of the prime controls, at Borehamwood. This means people were allowed to start there, as well as just visit.

An amazing variety of machinery visited us. We were at one end of a petrol station forecourt, which meant there was petrol, food, and a toilet available, (for us as well as the riders). One thing that amused us, between people getting their scorecards stamped, was a jetwash, which one sports car owner used to clean his engine, and then wondered why it wouldn’t work.

As we were one of the start points, we weren’t expected to run all night, I think we shut about 10pm, although some of the central ones would be running all the way to the end.

Phil Drackley - Phil the Spill