1983 – The Motoring News Championship – Part I
…but
just before we get to 1983, I’m sure 1982 was the first Tour of Mull in the
black Escort KKC 733P, and I’m also sure this was the first and last time that
dad (Roy) had used a full-face crash helmet.
Some memories are sharper than others, so whether it was the first ‘stage’
or not I’m not sure, but the helmet, which he’d borrowed (possibly from Kevin
Savage) was deployed, with the essential intercom, at Gruline, which was to be
the start of the ‘Long Long One’ – the long way around Calgary Bay to Dervaig,
then competitive through the village, turning right to Glen Aros and finally
ending at Aros Bridge outside Salen, less than four miles from where we started
but after 33½ miles of jaw-dropping, sphincter-clenching rally road.
Almost
as soon as he’d started, dad realised his mistake. It wouldn’t have shown up on a reccy, but
under 10/10ths rally pressure, his glasses steamed up inside the helmet. After losing his place on the notes a few
times we decided I’d just have to drive on memory and sight. The distraction caused by his attempts to
keep his place were more distracting than having to do without notes. I wasn’t too worried as I could remember the
roads pretty well – but to remember over 33 miles was a big ask!
All
went reasonably well. On the big drops
above Calgary you daren’t knock it down a notch – in my experience you’re more
likely to go off if you try to slow down – so it was just a question of
concentrating like your life depended on it (which it did to an extent!). But it was after Dervaig, on the ridiculously
fast Glen Aros, that I began to over-think.
I remembered we had a note which read “Absolute crest at leaning post OK”
– i.e. under no circumstances lift off.
The leaning post was a black and white passing place post, and OK means it
doesn’t look like it but do as you’re told!
I thought to myself “When I see the leaning post, it’s absolute”… then I
thought “We never actually looked to see if there were any more leaning posts!” But when I saw it, I took the crest flat at
about 105 mph… and the road was still there (with us on it) at the other side. But that was some crisis of confidence!
Incidentally,
I always carried a clean tea towel in the driver’s door pocket – washed without
detergent or conditioner – for wiping the windscreen and keeping it
streak-free. It’s sacrosanct. But as I took off my helmet and headed from
the finish to petrol at Craignure, the sweat was pouring off my forehead and on to my glasses. I had to fashion the sacred tea-towel into a
bandana to see where I was going! I’m
not sure where we finished but it was outside the top ten that year. Better results were to come…
John
Meadows and I had decided to contest as many Motoring News Rally Championship rounds as we could the following year,
1983. Our budget was little better than
a shoestring, and we knew we couldn’t afford all of them, but we’d have a go,
concentrating on the NW of England, and Wales.
Top crews included Mick Briant/Dave Kirkham, Mike Hutchinson/Nigel
Harris, Ron Beecroft/John Millington, Theo Bengry/Paul Watkins… the list of top
drivers just went on and on. Elfyn Evans’s
dad, Gwyndaf, was very very quick in the Welsh lanes as I remember.
I
think the first event was the Agbo, in Wales, and this represented a steep
learning curve. Here we were, capable of
winning events at home, driving well (so we thought) and finishing outside the
points. We learnt very quickly that we
would have to go a lot quicker!
We
had a regular service crew – Pete Croft and Mick Fishlock – and the routine was
that we’d load the car on to the trailer on Saturday in good time to set off
for the rally start. Apart from Mull,
the furthest was the Cilwendeg (Newcastle Emlyn) but there were others in Wales
including the Cambrian News and the Eagle.
I know Pete and Mick enjoyed being part of our ‘campaign’. The first task at all rally starts was the
noise test, then scrutineering. All
events had a noise meter and if the car exceeded 78 dBA you had to make it
quieter or not be allowed to start.
Pete
would insist that the marshals tested the car whilst it was still on the
trailer, always saying “There’s no point taking it off and then loading it back
on again if it fails”… which it never did.
But it made the officials smile.
At
the start of the Devil’s Own – a bit more local, and an event I’ve won, albeit
as navigator, I had a look at the other cars and realised I was the
highest-seeded car NOT on racing tyres.
And I smiled. NW England in
spring? At least half those cars would
have tyres way below their optimum temperature for most of the night. We had a much better result this time,
despite the ‘hairy’ moment on Lythe Fell.
Lythe Fell / Cross o’Greet is without doubt my favourite road. Moorland, blind brows, long drops, the
occasional deceptive bend but with some really high speed sections as well, it
has just about everything. I spectated
once, and after the top ten had gone through I turned to Val and said “Jeez,
these boys are going fast!” to which she calmly replied “Well, you nearly
always beat all of them,” which was a nice thing to say.
Anyway,
we were on notes (legally) and about 400m from the summit (Cross o’Greet) had
the mother and father of moments over a crest.
How we kept it on the road I will never know to this day, but we did, I
recovered my composure and we continued.
At the finish I said “John, make sure you tighten that up before next
time.”… which was in October, on the Bolton Midnight. I’d forgotten all about it, until we were
queued for the start – so I said to John “You did tighten up that crest on the
notes didn’t you?” and he replied, all matter-of-fact, “Nope.” That got a
reaction – “NOPE? What do you mean? Why not?”
“Well,” said John, “I thought ‘We must have taken two seconds off the
field on that one crest alone, and we didn’t crash, so I thought we could do it
again.’” Needless to say, I probably
backed off at every crest from half a mile before this time!!
Gisburn Forest, another favourite, is the next road to the east that returns over the same fell. On one event that used this road, someone I knew from Clitheroe & District Motor Club, who had recently started driving on rallies, came up to me at the petrol halt after Gisburn Forest, and said "I’ve just driven that selective as fast as
it’s humanly possible to drive, and you did it more than a minute faster
still. So where’s the short-cut?” He was deadly serious. You can’t really tell someone that his idea
of the human upper limit of fast driving is clearly out of touch with reality
by a very long way! I just
shrugged my shoulders and made an excuse to get away.
I
think that Otley DMC’s Colman Tyres was the next event, and an MN round as well
in 1983. Most of the route was on Ron
Beecroft’s doorstep, the first selective was wreathed in thick fog and all I
could think of was how unbelievably quick Ron was in fog. So I tried as hard as I could, until the road
went square right and I didn’t! No
damage but it took several minutes to get the wheels back on to tarmac, by
which time we were well out of the points.
Looking at the selective times afterwards though, I worked out we would
have been fourth overall without that off.
On a Motoring News event. We could do it, if we kept trying!
