Ludlow Castle Motor Club

Three Ludlow Castle Motor Club members made the trip to Yorkshire and Scotland for the three day long Roger Albert Clark Rally.
Will Onions, co-driven by Telford’s Tim Hobbs, won class D3 in the Ford Escort Mark 2, but the highest placed LCMC member was Phil Clarke from Felhampton, near Church Stretton.
Rising star 22 year old Martin McCormack from Northern Ireland was a late entry for the RAC and because his usual co driver did not read maps he teamed up with Phil, a very experienced co-driver.

Martin McCormack & Phil Clarke

Following the first group of Yorkshire stages, they were 2nd overall (despite what they thought was a cautious start) only 40 secs down on Steve Bannister the eventual winner, although they did beat Banner by 13 secs on the 2nd Dalby stage.
The first Cumbrian stage brought disaster however when they slide into one of the big ditches that line the sides of the forest road. By the time enough spectators had arrived the crew were forced to take a stage maximum time of 15 minutes when the leaders were taking only 9 minutes. This dropped the crew down to 14th overall.
A determined fight back on the Sunday saw them set 8 fastest stage times out of 12 stages, bringing them back up to 5th.
On the Monday a podium place seemed to be achievable but despite being quickest on all six of the days stages, even with no back brakes on the first loop of three stages, they missed 3rd by 18 secs to finish 4th O/A in the Ford Escort Mark 2.
LCMC’s John Worthing from Orleton had a very eventful rally.
John, co-driven by Dolgellau’s Bill Robertson, dropped time in the second stage by landing in a ditch, but got out and took the class lead back from Ken Forster for the next couple of stages.
Disaster struck again when he arrived at the start of a later stage with smoke billowing from under the bonnet of “Bent Box”, the Mark 1 Ford Escort Mexico.
John had a quick look, shut the bonnet again to slow down the fire and then put it out with the handheld extinguisher. The carbs had spat back and lit the air filter element, this dropped onto the ignition feed wire, the throttle cables and the oil gauge pipe and melted them all.
The car was quickly pushed into the control and John was given permission to work on it.
He struggled through the Langdale stage and on to service with a makeshift exterior throttle cable (just a length of electric cable) donated by his rival, Ken Forster.
The service crew fixed up the throttle and ignition cables and John managed to finish the Saturday 2nd in Class, but 6 minutes behind the leader.
John’s eventful weekend continued on the Sunday on the Scottish stages when “Bent Box” had a very hard landing in Twiglees.
This bent 2 wheels which locked up on the brake calipers pushing the hand brake lever on!
This gave the symptoms of a broken crown wheel because of the thumping, but John got to the end of the stage thinking his rally was over.
If he had changed the wheels he could have continued but he thought the axle was broken.
When he eventually had a closer look, John fixed the problem but was out of the rally.
However, he was allowed under super rally rules to continue but could not be given a result.

John Worthing & Bill Robertson

REPORT by KEITH GLUYAS
PHOTOS by RALLY ACTION PHOTOGRAPHY

PEAK REVS NOVICES ROAD RALLY
Sponsored by Pete Hamer Joinery
10 / 11 November 2007

The return of Ludlow Castle Motor Club’s classic Peak Revs Road Rally after an absence of seven years was very well received.
The Clerk of the Course, Anthony Gluyas, had decided that the event should be primarily aimed at novices and beginners to Road Rallying, traditionally the starting point for those interested in entering the rallying side of Motorsport.
Anthony Gluyas said “there was a great buzz at the finish with everyone saying how they had enjoyed the event. Also, it was heart warming to discover that the semi-experts went out of their way to help the beginners and novices with any problems they had, especially on the maps.
I would like to thank everyone who helped make the return of our event so successful, including the officials, marshals, sponsor and especially all the residents on the route.”
The driving and navigational skills of the 45 crews were tested over 140 miles of Shropshire, Worcestershire and Herefordshire classic roads.
After their early exit from this year’s Woodpecker Stages by rolling on the first run through Haye Park, brothers in arms and Novices Martin and Simon Ridge brought the Vauxhall Astra home in 1st place O/A.
The competition was so fierce that only 7seconds separated the top three finishers.
The Peugeot 205 GTi of Novices Gavin Lewis and Jon Bird finished in 2nd place just 5 seconds behind the Ridge brothers, with the Ford Escort RS of Semi-Experts Ian Mason and Dean Davies a further 2 seconds behind in 3rd place.
Despite keeping close to his brothers all night, Semi-Expert Chris Ridge, with David Thomas, couldn’t catch them, but made it a family affair by finishing 4th 0/A in the Peugeot 205 XS.

Class winners were:
Semi-Experts
Ian Mason & Dean Davies Ford Escort RS
Novices
Gavin Lewis & Jon Bird Peugeot 205 GTi
Beginners
Chris Williams & Gemma Samuel Vauxhall Astra
Highest Placed Peugeot
Max Derry & Paul Price

1st Martin Ridge & Simon Ridge (Novice) + 0.04
2nd Gavin Lewis & John Bird (Novice) + 0.09
3rd Ian Mason & Dean Davies (Semi) + 0.11
4th Chris Ridge & David Thomas (Semi) + 1.11
5th Kelvin Hughes & Richard Barnes (Novice) + 2.39
6th Oliver Davies & Ian Jarman (Novice) + 2.42
7th Max Derry & Paul Price (Novice) + 3.09
8th Wayne Jones & Chris Clark (Semi) + 3.12
9th Keith Morgan & Steven McThee (Novice) + 5.07
10th Dan Campbell & Rob Gittins (Novice) + 6.23

REPORT & PHOTO by KEITH GLUYAS

Please feel free to use our contacts e mail for any information on any of the above items.