A word on signals. While these are universally unpopular at the moment you may feel that a gesture is appropriate. Please be aware that signaling numbers with your fingers is not considered to be good form numbers one and two usually invoke anger, three and four, anger after a spell of confusion and naught should be avoided at all costs.

Pedestrians are not allowed on the M25 so we will have the Le Mans style start in a car park in Staines which is de rigeur particularly in the Councilor Dimwiddy Memorial Car Park.

Many Tongues

To assist our visitors from abroad we are installing a Bob-Cutler Translating Machine shortly. Bob has been a member of the 'Ealing Feeling French Society' (originally 'le resistance') for many years and this, combined with his knowledge of parts of all sorts will help us resolve even the most niggling of issues. Please send in a few phrases for translation to French so that we can install and test the e-quipment.

Bob, driver of team 14, used to fly in Wellingtons.

more later ......

Message from Helen Roberts Team 21 (In connection with P Duck's use of naval octane fuel to achieve high speed being met with organisers' implementation of standard fuel for all participants) "hmm my engine is adapted to take surgical spirit"

Organisers reply "Rallyesudoline is actually a scientific mixture. Branded in France as l'essence de l'essence and sold under the Helf brand, it is, as its name suggests a 'helthy essence' and must contain Surgical Spirit (for Health), liquid coke (for power), Parafin (for smooth movement), Diesel (for pollution) and nitros Oxide (for happy motoring).

14:30 16/10/2002 All entrants who have submitted paperwork now have cars registered. The committee has had difficulty finalising the 25 hour endurance race start arrangements. As the M25 goes both ways it seemed like a good idea to offer the choice to the teams. Even though the question "Do you want to keep your currency?" Brought an immediate and unanimous answer, no reply was received whatsoever.

The committee is obliged to make teams' mind up for them when obstacles are encountered so they set about the task. The first proposal was that the odd teams should go to the left and the others to the right. This sadly was abandoned due to the inability to identify which ones were the odd teams with 100% confidence. The idea of red cars going to port and green to starboard was another good suggestion but Citroen's wide colour range and the use of multiple colours ensured this one was also a non starter.

Using the time-honoured technique used by the FA a double sided metal choice making technique was used and we are all going clockwise, starting from the historic battlements of Staines Town. (Scientists have, for some time now, for unknown reasons, been trying to eliminate Staines. Indeed some say they are working on Slough too. It's a pity they can't leave well enough and finish their work on the wonder drug we are all waiting for.) Kick off (a la FA) is at two thirty.

To ensure the accuracy of timings we have been in negotiation with the Governments across Europe to see if agreement could be reached to add an hour to the 19th so that no disruption is caused by running a 25 hour race in England. More news on this subject is expected shortly...

15 October 2002 in reply to Team details submission from Alan Cole (#27)

Hello Alan

I have processed your Rallye Carnet. There is one thing to sort out possibly are your extra pairs of snow shoes, your extra tablets and your second second aid kit - do you know something I dont?

16 October 2002 Alan Cole (#27) REPLY: Dick - I didn't think I had requested extras as listed below. I just put these under 'and finally specify, object of choice 1, 2 & 3' as I thought you had to give reasons for your 1st 2nd & 3rd choice? Obviously wrong, so what is one supposed to do there?

Yours, Alan

ORGANISERS REPLY TO Alan Cole (#27) : Life is a tightrope and if Rallye Sud was less complex people would complain that it wasn't 'interesting' enough. I am sorry, I think you may have used common sense over and above the call of duty...

Overview: The idea was to have five missing items (simulating the real life situation where you find you have to leave something behind) these five are the means by which candidates are selected to enjoy hazards (in life not having wheels on your aeroplane would be an analogy, sooner or later you would enjoy a more interesting than usual landing). The three items 'of your choice' wasn't meant to carry the perfectly readable grammatical meaning 'selected from your choice of five items not taken' rather (being on the list of items to be taken) an additional three items enabling teams to express their individuality and thus be recognisable by interest and possession by other competitors.

The rules say "You must not have any object that has not been selected from the list (of items taken) with you, your car or your passengers during the entire course of the rallye. The three objects of choice will be any items you wish so long as you supply a clear description of each. You will encounter hazards en-route and your equipment and answers to questions will effect your score for each stage. You will be free to express comments and to make remarks at any stage."

On a health and safety issue there was a clause added on 17 Sept 2002 (where the rules are changed the amendments are timestamped and published on the Admin page) "The luggage rules were altered in the interests of good personal hygiene to read :- "Entrants can take 35 items from the list below which includes three items of their own choice (it's easier to mark the 5 you're not taking with an x).....Anything else can be taken (e.g. fresh underwear) but nothing that can be used in any way instead of the 5 items not chosen".

This covered all sorts of items (including hankies, condoms, etc) that were not on the official list and people might want to take but didn't have to mention (your passport, international driving licence etc would also qualify) but had to be restricted to ensure they did not offer a loophole for people to find a pair of wheels in their pocket at the last minute when they were landing the plane without wheels. If this caught on it would have been difficult for me to catch people out and although no-one wants anyone to be caught out ironically if they are not the predictability co-efficient increases and interest would suffer.

Your choice was valid. You were taking extra quantities of things already indicated as 'on your list'. In some instances quantity is a key factor (e.g. water in the desert)

I hope that this helps. I hope you will be on the podium soon.

ORGANISERS (Supplementary) REPLY TO Alan Cole (#27)

I am doing the preparation for the 25 hour endurance race on Saturday and I am worried about you going in a Lomax. I have put your image on the entrants' page on the web site but to enable satisfying or realistic effects in animation I have to use many angles, I didn't have the heart to refuse the H-Vans joining the 2CV rallye (I may have been relaxed as they are the nearest thing to a motoring brick anyway and aren't hard to draw.)

The Lomax however offers a number of problems. The first is the passengers - There are precious few pictures to work from (people take pictures of lomaxes empty) the representation is likely to be bad as humans are supposed to look elegant (while with metal there is more leeway) and finally the rear wheel is well tucked away due to the angel of view it looks as if it's missing if represented faithfully. To get a car round a hairpin I need about 12 views and this is going to be a problem to achieve at high quality without picture sources.

You can of course still go in your lovely lomax but you may wish to go in one of your 2CVs (or an ideal one from the pool). I would be happy for the lomax to be transported to each camp/hotel in one of the fleet of car transporters if you would like to take evening spins or would miss it too much if it stayed at home.

A reply asap would be appreciated. Good luck in the Endurance in any case

17 October 2002 Message from Alan Cole, Driver,(#27) In response to your last 2 e-mails, the 3 items of my own choice are as follows:
Aerosol puncture repair can
One 2 metre length of perforated steel plate (Somerfield tracking)
Search and rescue beacon with international distress frequencies of 243.0 and 121.5mhz
Re M25 endurance race, I think I'll go clockwise.

I also attach 6 photos of the Lomax with someone in it and some showing a bit of rear wheel. I'm a bit short on pics with people but hope these will help. I do want to go in the Lomax if possible and don't want to be transported between camps/hotels.

Message from Alan Cole, Driver,(#27)

Changed my mind, sorry. Instead of the puncture repair aerosol at 1. below, I'd like to take 'a window of opportunity' as I think it might be more useful!!

ORGANISERS (further) REPLY TO Alan Cole (#27)

Alan, I like the window of opportunity! I would like you to have the aerosol as well for educational purposes as a special concession from the organisers - does it work like shaving crème?

Thanks for allowing you correspondence to be published. Your interpretation of the rules has 'followers' (drafting legislation must be a nightmare - keeping it simple leaves bigger holes than one would imagine, keeping it tight reveals that you (rather me) are insane)

Thanks for your cooperation with the pictures. The ones you sent are very helpful but I still don't have a rear view (I am not a sad person - it's needed for technical reasons) The unfortunate effect of publishing is that the 'public' see what's going on behind the scenes rather than enjoying seeing 'real' cars and drivers in competition they have to suffer the disappointment of realising that nothing is real.

Message from Alan Cole, Driver,(#27)

Please find attached a rear view.