Northern Road Rally Championship

BULLETIN NO. 9, NOVEMBER 2003

1^ST / 2^ND NOVEMBER – RND 11, VISUAL PACKAGING COSSACK RALLY, EASTWOOD & DMC

With 43 contenders out competing and another 11 marshalling, Eastwood’s event clearly retains its reputation as one of our region’s most popular. Once again the event had a full entry, although there were a few non-starters, notably this time Sandie & Paul Taylor – not defected to stage events permanently after Mull, I hope?!. Only eight crews failed to make it to the finish, proving that having lots of white mileage doesn’t necessarily break cars, even with the heavy rain that fell in the week leading up to the event and on the night itself. Indeed only five of the forty-nine finishers had fails, meaning that very little ‘cutting’ was needed to remain within OTL, thanks to sensible amounts of time recovery.

This year the event included only four sections timed to the second, two of which were around the smooth Tarmac of Barkston Heath airfield. One of the others had to be scrubbed due to a soggy clock, but this still left a clear result among the masters, who, as you would expect, cleaned many of the twenty-two standard sections, these included the vast majority of the 14 miles of gravel and grassy whites. Some of these were Cossack ‘regulars’, such as Temple Bruer and Ermine Street, but there were some new bits too to keep even the local crews guessing. Navigation was a good mixture, with some pre-plot bits but mostly plot and bash handouts, including a few with a twist, as you would expect from Clerk of Course Roger Hage. There were a couple of hiccups, but nothing major, overall the event was, as usual, very well organized and enjoyed by the majority of crews, if not the marshals who deserve our thanks more than ever for standing out on a horrible, wet and cold night.

Finally having a run of reliability and without some of the bad luck that dogged them earlier in the year, Guy Robinson & Charlie Wheeldon followed up their win on the 061 with an 8 second victory over half-way leaders Carl Hawkins & Iain Tullie. The power and traction of their 4WD Proton proved too much for the opposition as they took a minute out of everyone on the second card. Guy & Charlie are not in contention for ANCC honours this year, but it’s nice to know they haven’t lost the winning touch and no doubt will be among the silverware again next year. Also without enough scores to mount a challenge at the top of our tables are Lee Burgess and Steve Webster, who finished 3^rd and 4^th respectively, John & David Dimbleby who were an impressive 5^th and Mick Fern who finished 6^th, although mathematically the latter three could secure top five places if they do well on the remaining rounds.

A top ten finish on the Cossack is no mean feat, so well done to three crews who look to be hitting form at the right time as they fight for the drivers’ championship and placings in the navigators’ series: less than a minute covered 5^th down to 10^th with Malcolm & Richard Holdsworth, Dan Robinson & Ian Gibbins and Stan Featherstone & Mike Ogram taking 8^th to 10^th in that order. Quite a gap then though, of seven minutes to our next finishers, Terry Martin & Simon Bentley in 18^th followed by Dave Chapman & David Taylor in 19^th. Next up were Jon Lawson & Chris Pringle, after a troubled night in a borrowed car, which would at least be returned to its owner in one piece! Still, they got to the finish, unlike a certain driver who was taking the mickey out of them at the start……Despite his worst result of the year, Jon is still well in contention for the drivers’ title, here’s hoping he has some transport for the last two rounds!

Simon Tate & Richard Wilson continued a consistent run of points scoring in 24^th, while Adrian Ancliffe & John Chadwick managed their best score of the year in 26^th. One of our longest standing contenders, Alastair Crosby, was out competing for just the second time this year, managing 27^th with Three Swans C of C John Thornton alongside. Bill Chadwick & Alan Edwards, James Savage, Charlie Tynan, David Howell & Stephen Taylor and Nichola Hillier & Dave Broadley were the remaining ANCC experts to finish,  while Steve Pashley lead home the novices from Craig Whitehead & Lee Hudson and Anthony Baren. The only two ANCC crews on the non-finishers list were Mark Whitford & Steve Porter, who retired on the first run at the airfield and Bernie Watkins & Adam Roper, who parked the Berniemobile in a ditch on one of the grassy whites. There you go chaps, just to prove it isn’t just Motorsport News that reports on Ripon crews retiring.

Many thanks to Eastwood for another high quality event and, as mentioned earlier, all the marshals who took a right soaking. You should have received a championship questionnaire in the results, please get it back to me, along with those from the final two rounds if you compete.

Not much has changed at the top of the drivers’ table, Malcolm Holdsworth still leads and any of the top eight can win, five of them are already dropping scores so you could consider them to be in the best position, then you get to the complicated business of comparing ‘worst scores’ to drop…Mr Lawson looks in a good position there with a 1 and a 9 to drop…but then if Mr Hawkins were to win both the remaining rounds, he could take a record fifth title…lots of ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’, just how it should be!

The boring git at the top aside, the battle for the remaining overall awards in the navigators table is still wide open, 11^th and above could all make second with the wind in the right direction. Further down both tables, there is a good battle going on amongst the novices, who I have now marked on the tables, having established (correctly, I hope!) who is still eligible for these awards. As ever, let me know if you think I have made a mistake. As for the ‘Allrounders’ award, that could be heading Mr Broadley’s way again unless anyone else fancies swapping seats on one of the remaining rounds. Finally, Beverley still look likely winners in the club championship, especially with their home event next up.

With only a week between events, I won’t have time to get a bulletin out between the Beaver and Civil Service rallies, so the next bulletin will be the last of the year. However I will endeavour to email the tables out to you in between events and Mr. Smith will I am sure be as efficient as ever, so we should have the latest tables up on the website very soon after the Beaver. Those without internet or email will have to do the maths yourselves, but as ever the latest tables will be on display at the start of both events. While on the subject of bulletins, an apology to those of you who (nearly everybody!) who got a dodgy copy of the last one – what turns out to be a terminal failure of my duplex printer meant that I had to swap to the reserve printer, which then started running out of toner, bloody typical. They needed to go in the post, hopefully you all got a copy you could read. As for this bulletin, the majority of you are (hopefully!) reading an electronic version, this was the most cost effective way of getting round the printer problem in the short term. It’s also a lot easier but I have always felt that all contenders should get paper copies, although I know some of you are happy not to - I will give you the choice on next year’s registration forms.

Speaking of next year, the calendar is almost finalized, there are one or two changes but basically the format remains the same – as they say, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I may have regs out in time for the Beaver. 

That’s it for now, see you all in Sproatley.                            Iain