Still short of photos as always. So here's one generously provided by Kevin MacIver of the 'Skidmore Hire Car' from 85
September
1985; back from the Manx, not yet paid out by Black Horse (I'd have to wait until early next year for that), Val wanted a new fireplace
and carpets etc, but I would still have enough money to buy another Escort – decent
ones were going for between £3,500 and £4,000 in basic road-rally spec. I never did aspire to an all singing and
dancing big-winged model, and I think the writing was on the wall with the RAC
removing stage cars from road rallies. My
heart was in road rallies, not stages.
For
me, the perfect rally was a no-nonsense route, challenging but with no devious
tricks – because that was still a supreme test of driver, navigator and
car. To win an event all three had to be
on top form. It simply wasn’t possible
to succeed if any one of the three had a bad night, or even an indifferent
one.
I
kept looking at the adverts in Motoring News until one Thursday several months
later, I saw a ‘T’ reg car for sale near Fishguard in Pembrokeshire, fairly
standard but with Bilsteins and a few upgraded items – the single twin-choke
Weber carburettor had been replaced with an upgraded (still single twin-choke)
version. £3,950. I honestly can’t remember whether it had rear
discs or a balance bar brake system, but if it didn’t then, it soon would have!
Pete
Croft went with me to Pembrokeshire, together with a Building Society cheque
for £3,400 and £600 cash. I’m a big
believer in fair but firm negotiation, hence the flexibility: I can’t watch ‘The Apprentice’ any more, as none of the contestants could
negotiate their way out of a paper bag.
What they call ‘negotiation’ is almost always merely the most basic form
of haggling, and they’re even hopeless at that! (I watched Tom Hanks and Mark
Rylance in ‘Bridge of Spies’ recently
– if you want to know what negotiation
means you could do worse…)
The
car was really good, and felt fine on a short test drive. I think we agreed at £3,650 and I drove it
all the way home, grinning most of the way.
You
may remember a few episodes ago I mentioned Gordon Birtwistle – the Number One
man when it comes to rally car suspension.
Some time in 1985, I think, I got instructions to sell the house next
door, and knowing that Gordon was in the market for something like that, I made
sure he got the details. I’d have been prepared to move heaven and earth to get
him to buy it, but on his first viewing he liked what he saw and decided to go
ahead. I couldn’t believe my good fortune.
Surely there could be no better next door neighbour?!
As
soon as Gordon knew I’d bought a fresh rally car, he told me to go the
weighbridge at Dugdale Nutrition (with half a tank of fuel and driver and
navigator in the car), and come back with NINE weighings– all four wheels on,
then the two front wheels, both back wheels, left hand side, right hand side,
and each individual wheel. The man
operating the weighbridge was very patient!
Gordon took the printout, made lots of measurements on the car, then
went off to study them carefully.
When
he came back we had some jobs to do, including moving the battery from front to
back, and other jobs to get a better weight distribution. Gordon supervised removing all the suspension
as we increased the castor angle and gave the car a bit more negative
camber. You’d be surprised how much ‘tolerance’
there was in cars at that time – nothing was exactly the same on both sides –
and we had to get it all perfect.
The
result was a Road-rally class Escort which had, in its day, fabulous balance
and handling, an absolute joy to drive and one where you could take your hands
off the wheel at full speed and it would just continue in a straight line.
After
concentrating on the Motoring News Championship in 1983 it was over three years
since I’d done a ‘local’ local event, apart from that familiarisation with Mike
Kidd on the Ribble Rally in 1984. I also
needed a new navigator as John Meadows was busy elsewhere, but I soon found Joe
Riding was looking for a driver and another partnership was struck up. We decided to enter the BAC Charity Rally in
August 86. It started at Quicks for Ford
in Bury, with Ken Skidmore / Charlie Woodward seeded at No 1, Tony Shields /
Paul Burns at 2, J Naylor / A Sanderson at 3, and Alan Shaw with Rod Brereton
4. We were seeded 5, and it felt great
to be back on those Lancashire / Yorkshire roads, especially the moorland
stuff!
You
knew it was going to be a tough night when Clerk of the Course Mike Shields saw
the weather forecast and extended maximum lateness by 15 minutes; then we were only given the second half of
the route to plot, being handed the first half as we left the start for a run
out to Pendle Hill.
I
must have been a bit rusty, as Ken took 6 seconds off me on the first section,
then more over Gisburn Forest to take about a minute’s lead. I was cross as I’d outbraked myself and
slithered past a crossroads, having to reverse, then select first gear again,
losing a few seconds in the process.
Exiting the hairpin right in Fishnish forest
But
on the last three sections before petrol I started to drive much better, so
that at halfway we were only one second behind Skidmore & Woodward, with
Shaw / Brereton leading the rest of the field a rather distant three minutes
back. Ken pulled out more time on me
after the restart, then I wrested it back once again, until at the start of the
final test – Widdup Moor, south of Burnley – we were still only separated by a
single second. Ken and Charlie beat us
by 2 seconds on the last test, taking the rally win from us by an unusually
slim 3 seconds - after all that driving!
In third place, a further 8m 40s in arrears were Alan Shaw and Rod
Brereton. I’ll never forget Alan taking
his first look at the results when they were posted, and turning to me to say “I
think you and Ken were having your very own rally last night!” I was still thinking about that overshot
crossroads…!
Only
30 cars out of 55 starters managed to finish – that was a tough event!
Two
months later on the Tour of Mull, we were seeded at 10 but our early promise failed
to bear fruit this time. We’d been comfortably
inside the top ten times on the first five sections, and were lying 7th
overall when on no 6 (Glen Aros & Loch Tuath) something went badly wrong
and we dropped 45:51 to Pattison’s 1:45.
That was effectively the end, although we came back out for the Saturday
afternoon forest stages (16th o/a) and restarted on Saturday night,
but whatever the problem was it must have come back as our night times were
poor.
Early
in 87 I teamed up with Joe Riding for the second time, this time to do the
Roskirk (South Shore MC), once again finishing second overall, this time to
Dave Calvert and Stewart Lawrenson. I think
this was the event that went past Dave’s front door at Cow Ark, north of
Clitheroe near the Inn at Whitewell. On
this road there’s one of the ‘sweetest’ yumps anywhere, where you can have all
four wheels well off the road but the car always lands really smoothly – all very
satisfying.
On
this section I thought (correctly) that Dave would take time off me, so I gave
it the full 100%, and I guess must have taken that yump faster than ever
before. Instead of the nice sweet
landing I was expecting, we came down with a hell of a bang! I wouldn’t advise doing this in daylight when
the lockdown’s over…
At
least I reckoned I was back in the groove.
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