After a well-deserved night’s rest in Le Touquet, the competitors left the beautiful banks of the pearl of the Côte d’Opale heading towards the “21st arrondissement of Paris,” Deauville. On the programme of the second leg was a crossing of the Somme and the Seine Maritime by way of the Château de Varengeville, much loved by famous painter, Claude Monet, and the Boucles de Brotonne nature reserve.
This morning, drivers and co-drivers passed in front of the magnificent Abbaye de Valloires for the start of the first ZR (regularity zone) of the day. The first start of the day implies the first errors when reading the roadbook for some crews like #72, Maud Ugljesin and Béatrice Ramsteiner in their 1984 BMW M635 Cs1, who passed the start of the ER twice, a round trip that cost them 40 minutes!
A regularity rally on open roads always leads to a few racing incidents! This day was no exception. Tractors, heavy duty trucks, buses and even school exits all added spice to this afternoon’s two regularity zones. The crew of #47, Berthe de Vos-Neven and Anne-Marie Haenebalcke at the wheel of their Chevrolet Corvette C2, lost out accumulating several seconds’ lateness.
The weather too played tricks today. At the end of the last regularity zone light rain began to fall, which soon turned into a downpour at the finish in Deauville. The crew of #64 Lorraine Mcdowell and Sophie Furley crossed under the finishing arch in their open-top 4/4 Morgan as soaked as if they’d been for a swim in the Channel! “That’s part of the charm of Normandy,” they said to us their faces lit up with smiles.
