After a series of good rally results it was time for a closing event of the 2023 rallying year: the Brit Butt Rally, a 35 hour rally through Britain. I had have participated in every BBR since 2011 and won it between 2015 and 2018, coming second twice and third once. In the year after 2018, I had a series of mishaps and errors that had annoyed me. I like riding through the British countryside, so it was time to travel to the rally HQ in Coventry. However, I wanted to avoid stupid errors this time to get this monkey off my back.

The rally’s topic was “chart music”, the rally book was simple and I finished my planning at 11 pm, having time for a beer before hitting the sack. A luxury.

My plan included the Welsh coastline, Dorset, London, East Anglia and Northumberland; actually I was ahead of my ambitious plan which allowed me to include two extra points that were crucial in the end. I had no issues except some dying auxiliary lights. Traffic, as usual, got painful in the afternoons. But I stayed in the flow and had a nice ride. The BMW behaved perfectly, as ever. I arrived 30 min too early as I ran out of locations.

After the dinner, the ceremony revealed the ranking: I was called to the podium with Scott and Arjen. I had no lost any points this time and even Arjen’s strong route and execution could not prevent me from winning the BBR for the fifth time! Nice! A long evening with a lot of chatting and pints ended this good weekend.