In my 52nd year of competing and 91st Stage Rally as a co driver I had the great honour of being in Car Number 1, sitting next to Andy Fraser in a Darrian T9 with a Nissan based 3.0 V6 engine on the Skoda Rainworth Stages at RAF Leconfield near Beverley in East Yorkshire last Sunday. Andy runs an Engineering business Promotive in the Midlands but has become a friend through his sponsorship of a stage at Clacton. I hever been at 1 before . . . . .

My original plan was to co drive Tony Clements Evo X at Car 5 but his gearbox was playing up so I entered the CMC Regularity 12 Car with Michael Helm instead - much nearer to home. However Andy's regular co driver Alan a to z Jones ( dont ask) had to work on Sunday so I had a late call to drive up to Hull on Saturday evening.  The venue hadn't been used for stages for 19 years and the organisers over complicated the layout in fear of cars beating the bogeys. The diagrams would do credit to a Targa but it meant laying hundreds of cones to define the route and "cone blindness" when pulling 120 here and there was tricky.  Andy's plan was to use the event as a shakedown for the car & driver for the Three Shires next weekend - but you know what happens when the light goes green!

4th place on Stage 1 felt good but the pace of car 7 Mark Roberts had the top crews tongues wagging.  Lining up first on the road is very tricky as although you have a nominated time it doesn't get confirmed until all the cars have cleared the previous stage. As we were idling in the queue the alternator charging signal was intermittent so Andy was unsure the battery was fully charging. He erroneously switched off and of course there wasn't enough juice to re-start. The marshals pushed us back but not hard enough to jumpit and by the time we did get enough pushers other cars had started the stage. We tried to push in but the Stage Commander said "sorry boys" go away and come back for stage 3. It took 3 hours for our Missed Stage 30m penalty to appear in the results and I appealed for a stage max of 16m to be applied - to no avail.

On SS3 we were 3rd fastest whilst the SS1 leader, after a max on SS2 was out of the rally with a rear end fire that was nasty but could have been worse. That caused a full cancellation so our time didn't count! On SS4 and SS5 we were fastest by 3s and 8s AND WERE THE ONLY CAR TO SET TWO FASTEST TIMES so with the old if this, & if that, WE HAD THE PACE TO WIN. The cars power, particularly at high speed, the phenominal braking and of course the outstanding ability of the driver were a revelation.

Pot Hunter Bowie was cautioning the driver to finish ( for CMC points of course) and by SS5 only two cars were running in our class - Martin Hodgson Escort 2.5 Millington was winning  both the rally and Class 4 holding two R5 Fiestas at bay. We were last overall!.  Remember this was a shakedown  . . .well Banzai Fraser went large on SS6 ( the last one - each stage of 7 or 8 miles) and took an extra gear going from a long 9L in to 4L.4R with stage furniture to the right and mostly grass on the left! There wasn't a hope of turning in to the 4R but we kept it almost straigh as we went on to the grass . . .where a small unseen post split the front panel & radiator and a more obvious large post ripped my side pod off but our speed was unabated until water from the rad started coming on the screen and the ominous smell of coolant reached the cabin.  We turned down the speed and cruised in after one lap for a stage maximum. 

Andy packed his bags and headed home and I stayed for the results hoping a missed stage and a max wouldn't get us excluded. Martin Hodgson duly won from Darrell Taylor and Lyndon Barton - all crews heading for Malvern next week and I was delighted to collect the trophies for First in Class whilst finishing Last Overall. ( 48th out of 59 starters. )

Richard Bonner was sitting in with a young Junior finishing 7th out of 9

Well done to Bradley Howlett winning his Class on the Mewla and Tony Allery 5th in a class of 28 on his first event on Epynt.

Well done Paul Brewerton running the Regularity 12 car and to Rachel Vestey pointing Owen Turner to victory.  Thanks to James Portway taking over as my nav on the 12 car with Mike Helm 6th overall 2nd i/c 

Jim Bowie