Firstly many thanks to the 83 Marshals and Officials that turned out last Saturday for the splendid running of the 29th East Anglian Classic under the capable guidance of Paul Brewerton. 

There are plenty of photos and comments on Facebook, and as ever Tony Michael produced the results on mtc1 in double quick time.

Whilst the Final Results showed the Overall Winners Matt Abrey & Ryan Pickering in the yellow Mini as leaders at every halt,  having a whip hand in the tight bits on the tests, they almost managed to hand victory to the No5 Kadett Coupe of John Haygarth & Martyn Taylor on the last section. They threw their scant 7 second lead, going into the last 3 tests at Lavenham away, with an expensive 20 sec overshoot on Test 8 & a 5 sec cone penalty on Test 10 starting the last Regularity with a 25 sec deficit. Unfortunately for Haygarth they missed the only Code Board on Reg E  (1m40s !)  so it was only their dominant Test Performance which kept them 2nd Overall.

Ian Crammond/Mike Vokes in the big Mercedes 280 SL were 2nd best on the Regularities and were only pipped to 3rd Overall by the Volvo of peter Higton/Henry Carr.

CMC's John King in the MR2 was a good 4th on the Tests but a missed Code Board early on meant a 6th place finish ( with 1st in Class M3/4 )behind the Binsteads MGB.

Higher overall positions were sacrificed by No 11 Angus McQueen green Cortina GT & Barry Moore Mini by failing to record their Self Start Times at the start of Regularity B. McQueen was also one of 5 cars to miss the split on the only lapping test - the brilliant Park Farm .

My course car driver David Taylor in the Proton Coupe delighted in frightening me through the " tight tree section "- a similar delight handed to Colin Sutton by my mate Martyn Craske in their MGB GT. The first time Craske/Sutton pairing were winning the large Novice Class until the last Regularity where a mean bit of plot & bash banjaxed at least 3 crews - they still got a pot for 3rd. 

Winners of the Novice Class in 14th o/a were Lee Davies/Richard White 1275 GT & popular winners of the Expert E12 Class were Stanley Graham/Liz Jordan in the Dolomite 11 th o/a . Winners of E4 were 8th o/a Alan Pettit/Richard Lambley MX5.

The 4 strong Clubmans Class which had a printed Regularity Map ( without control locations of course) was dominated by Chelmsford Crews and produced a scintillating battle between Goliath the huge XJ-S of Curtis Jacoby/Ray Crowther and little David in the form of John Peterson/Ian Graham Cooper S.

Crow edged a 2.06 margin over Ian on the 5 Regularities but the Jag ceded 2.29 to the Mini on the 10 Tests giving John & Ian a victory of just 13 seconds after they were tied level at the beginning of the last Time Card.

Novices Alex Menhinick/Alan Collett Porsche 944 were a distant 3rd in the Run but a Massive Merit must go to Matthew & Diane Mantle in the Elan ( 4th in Class) as they missed the whole of Timecard 2 as a cyclist fell off his bike on a road section some distance in front of them. They kindly stopped & Diane being a First Aider comforted him until the ambulance arrived. The guy had broken ribs as well as grazes.

The Mantles were reinstated on the board at lunch and finished the rally at The Grange Hotel in Thurston.

I've just spotted a full Rally Report from Ian Beech on facebook ( with photos ) but we haven't used the same script, so I'll let Matt Endean borrow this one as well for Facebook.

Jim