april 2007

BETTA SOMERSET STAGES RALLY 2007

Burnham on Sea and Minehead Motor Clubs jointly organised the fourth Round of the 2007 Silverstone Competition Tyres BTRDA Rally Series based in Minehead.
The BETTA Somerset Stages Rally attracted just over 110 entries which included 32 crews in the Tesco 99 Octane 1400 section of the event.
Kington’s Andy Burton won the event for the 7th consecutive time and for the 8th time in total in his very special hybrid Peugeot Cosworth.
Running first car through the forests of the Exmoor National Park proved beneficial to Andy as the dry conditions produced a lot of dust for following cars to contend with.
The event proved very hard on competing cars as nearly half failed to get to the finish due in the main to mechanical problems.
Gremlins hit five out of the eight Ludlow Castle Motor Club crews who were forced to retire as follows:
Driveshaft failure on the Vauxhall Nova forced Mark Kinsey, co-driving for Hereford’s Reg Davies, out of the event on the 8th Stage of the day.
The Mark 2 Ford Escort of Joe Price and Phil Clarke retired , reason unknown.
Dave Brick and Rob Woodhouse broke the propshaft on their Mark 2 Ford Escort ending their rally.
The Ford Escort G3 of Andrew Bowen and Andrew Sankey retired with transmission failure on the 8th Stage.
The other LCMC crews taking part had much better fortune than their fellow club members.
The highest finishing spot went to the giant killers Neil Weaver and Nick Thornton.
They brought the 1400cc Proton Satria home in 12th place O/A, 1st in Class and 1st two-wheel drive car, being beaten only by turbo-charged four-wheel drive cars.

Neil Weaver & Nick Thornton

Gary Scott and Mike Scrimgour have had their misfortunes on previous rallies but changing to a Vauxhall Nova has improved their finishing performance.
They crossed the finish line in 30th position.

Gary Scott & Mike Scrimgour

Finally, Henri Grehan, co-driven by Hereford’s Shane Bowen, brought the Plas Lime Escort RS home in 52nd place O/A.

The next Round of the Silverstone Competition Tyres BTRDA Rally Series will be the Red Dragon Rally based in South Wales on May 19th.

REPORT by KEITH GLUYAS
PHOTOS by RALLY ACTION PHOTOGRAPHY

PIRELLI INTERNATIONAL RALLY 2007

Carlisle City Centre hosted at the weekend the start and finish of the first Round of the 2007 Tesco 99 Octane British Rally Championship.Competitors faced 60 miles of action over two days in the North Cumbrian forests, including some night time action in the fearsome “ Killer Kielder “ complex.The event was split into three separate rallies, International, National and for the very first time the Historic Rally, a Round of the MSA British Historic Rally Championship.

Only two Ludlow Castle Motor Club crews made the long journey up north.James Wozencroft and Chris Ridge teamed up once again and had a successful day.They brought the Suzuki Swift Sport GR N2 home in 21st place O/A in the International Rally.

Not so fortunate was LCMC’s John Worthing, co-driven by Dolgellau’s Bill Robertson.John is competing in the 2007 MSA British Historic Rally Championship and was hoping to pick more championship points on the Pirelli.

The Pirelli was the second Round of the Championship due to the fact that the previous event, the North Wales Astra Stages, was cancelled earlier this month due to lack of entries.

Unfortunately, John’s JT Foam and Fibre 1600 Mark 1 Ford Escort Mexico let him down on the very first Stage of the event.With what was thought to be a blown piston John retired from the event and headed home.The problem turned out to be a blown head gasket which could have been fixed overnight allowing John to continue the following day under the Super Rally rules and possibly claim more Class Championship points.

John Worthing

The next Round of the Historic Championship is the Severn Valley National Rally starting at Builth Wells on 2nd June.

REPORT by KEITH GLUYAS