Rally Types, part deux

Hands Off Mechanic (HoMo)

The Hands Off Mechanic is the bloke (always a bloke) who packs a 9mm spanner and nothing else. Irresistibly attracted to the centre of the action, he waves it about during any mechanical emergency. Four rallies later and he still hasn’t figured out that a 10mm might be more useful.

Deep down (well, deep down to him. To everyone else it’s as blindingly obvious as an Albanian policeman’s hat) the HoMo doesn’t really want to get oil on his Carhartt jeans. So despite being second under the bonnet at every breakdown, he’s never the one that plunges his hands in.

Instead, he offers sage advice. “Maybe a clogged air filter,” he says, poking hesitantly at the battery cover. He stays just long enough to be told what the problem really is, then strides over to the group. “Yeah, we’re having to totally rebuild the top of the engine. Nightmare. Thanks, I’d love a beer.”  

The HoMo’s car is a shed. The brakes are failing, various lights don’t work and it’s been attracting police attention since Calais. This pleases him greatly. Every roadside disaster is another chance to wave his 9mm spanner about until the Spotlight Superhero actually fixes the problem. In the real world the HoMo drives a two-year-old diesel Toyota Corolla because someone told him they don’t break down. Last week he filled it with petrol by mistake and had to call the AA to rescue him off the M40.

The HoMo is closely related to the Showbiz Slacker. A camera in hand is the perfect excuse to hang around the action without actually getting oil in his fingernails. Truly professional HoMos have now dispensed with the 9mm spanner and simply follow in close convoy with the Spotlight Superhero.

 

Cap’n Faffer

Cap’n Faffer gets terribly distracted about the time everyone else wants to get going. As a rule, anyone wearing the Hat of Faff is addicted to the buzz you get when the group prepares to leave in the morning; telling jokes, taking pictures and recounting last night’s bruising encounter with a beer long banned from the EU. Trouble is, it’s completely slipped their mind to check out/take the tent down/drag their car out of the sand dune.  

Only once the Health & Safetys start revving their engine with pointed aggression do the Cap’n Faffer types stir into action. Or they would if they could find their room key. Usually it takes the group to dwindle to just their teammate before Cap’n Faffer realises something’s amiss.

The same goes for petrol stops. Cap’n Faffer leaps out the car, takes a few pictures, animatedly discusses that near miss of the goat/policeman/border post, and only remembers to take a piss once everyone else is back in their car with engines on.

Concentration is not a Faffer strong point. Driving is a lottery and one with way better odds than the EuroMillions. Less “It Could be You” and more “It bloody well will be you if the Cap’n doesn’t stopping yakking into the CB while changing gear and scrabbling for the Coke bottle.”

Cap’n Faffers usually redeem themselves through sheer entertainment, but there’s always one team who snap after one Faff Attack too many.

 

Spotlight Superhero

Every rally needs one of these. Spotlight Superheroes are the legendary rally spannermen who revel in fixing any mechanical problem, no matter how desperate. In fact, the worse the better.  As long as there’s a good-sized group on hand to applaud the result, the Spotlight Superhero positively relishes tackling disasters that would cause even award-winning AA men to go queasy.

Spotlight Superheroes remember the details of each and every bodge they’ve completed, usually involving plenty of gaffer tape and cable ties. Unless you want to hear all the gory minutiae of suspension struts rebuilt with 2x4 planks, live battery feeds, and gaskets made of Cornflake packets, they’re generally best avoided after beer number five.

Spotlight Superheroes have a long history of pissing about in crap cars and their knowledge of what causes an Austin Maxi’s brakes to fail is terrific if you’ve actually got an Austin Maxi with failed brakes, but less so if you haven’t. In fact, you don’t want to admit to having owned an Austin Maxi, or indeed bring the car’s name up in conversation at all, for fear of hearing the reason why British Leyland didn’t properly develop it… zzzz.

In general the Spotlight Superhero’s borderline autism is tolerated because without them, plenty of rallies would have ended in Dover.

However the Spotlight Superhero’s wife is less impressed. Despite all the tales of mechanical derring do, he STILL hasn’t fixed the sticking door lock on her Corsa.