News from: The BTRDA Rally Championship and The Kenyan National Rally Championship
Geoff’s gossip Another day, another airport! Tonight it’s Doha, in Qatar, and I’m returning from the penultimate round of the Kenyan National Rally Championship with a rather nice tan! Heaven only knows what the weather will be like in Wales but I doubt whether I’ll need my shorts this weekend! Whilst Alistair Cavenagh might have been crowned champion at the recent Coast Rally in Kenya the event belonged to Ian Duncan and his crowd pleasing Nissan Patrol 4x4. The rough nature of the event suited Ian’s creation but for 2011 he moves across to the shopping car class and has recently taken delivery of an ex Sebastian Ling Mitsubishi Evo 9. This Nissan, and the hybrids that have followed, seem to have opened a rather large can of worms in Kenya. Affectionately called Special Performance Vehicles (or SPV’s for those who love acronyms) they used to be penalised with a 2% time handicap. But this was removed for 2010 after the FIA granted Group N4 bigger restrictors. However a recent bulletin, issued by the governing body, announced that they intend to ban all non FIA homologated vehicles from 2012 and will, in the interim, impose a 4% time penalty on the class! Considering that the recent Coast Rally was the first outright win for a Group S car in a long time such a ruling seems very random! Ian informed me that the cost of building the pick up was a substantial amount less than it cost to buy the Evo 9 (hardly the new car on the block anymore!) so it beggars belief that the KMSF should choose to ban a “back yard special” with no suitable reason. When asked, the directors informed me that they were towing the FIA line in order to try and get Kenya back on the international map! Now I’m afraid that the African market is not very high on the radar for European car manufacturers and due to the difficulty of ensuring closed road rallying, along with less than satisfactory timing, safety and tracking systems, there is little hope of Kenya being readmitted to either the IRC or the WRC in the next five years… Jean Todt told the press as much during his recent whistle stop tour of the continent recently! Not only this but Group S cars are allowed to run the world over! In the UK we have Burton’s Peugeot beast, in Ireland they have nutty 340bhp Ford Escorts and all through Europe we see marvels of ingenuity… heck, in the American National Championship the top level of rallying is a million miles from anything we see in the WRC or IRC so why should a power crazy African organisation have the right to ignore what their competitors and spectators and sponsors want? If we applied this new rule to the latest round of the championship only 19 of the 51 starters would have been eligible!!! (Geoff and fan…)
The most successful championship in the UK is the BTRDA Series… the home of the backyard specials. And if they are good enough for the Health and Safety mad MSA then surely such a class is more than acceptable in middle Africa?
What I am about to say might shock some people (but then most people are used to me sprouting forth with my unbiased opinion anyway!) but it has taken me six months to reach this conclusion… I am moving home to Africa! Since arriving full time in the U.K in December 2004 I really have lived the dream. People told me I could not make a living out of motor rallying and I took great delight in proving them wrong. It hasn’t been easy and at times I’ve felt that there have been conspiracies against my agency, but I’m really proud of what we’ve achieved and am more than a little sad that it is coming to an end. The politics of rallying in the U.K are getting too much, the quality of life will never compare to what we have in Africa and with the current recession external sponsorship is virtually a myth. I could have carried on “surviving” for sure… but I want more than that and so by moving to Kenya at the end of November (I don’t waste time chaps!) I feel that I will be able to achieve so much more. I will be heavily involved in both the Kenyan and African Championships in 2011 and look forward to playing some sort of role in the East African Safari Classic next November… but rallying will be a hobby once again, thus allowing me to actually enjoy my first love properly! (And with luck it will give me the opportunity to compete slightly more regularly too!) I’ve seen a lot of history being made – Mcrae on the limit in the Skoda through Crychan, Loeb been crowned again and again and again, Ogier taking his first win, Latvala triumphing at home, Hirvonen rolling in Sweet Lamb and so many more amazing moments. I’ve been to the best rallies in the world – Monte Carlo, Sweden, Finland, Spain, Germany, Corsica… even attended rallies in such far flung locations as Iceland, Estonia, the Isle of Man – and since the Riponian Rally in 2005 I have attended a total of 230 rallies… and boy it’s been fun! So to all the competitors, organisers, marshals, media and spectators that I’ve met and made friends with – thanks for the memories! ☺ And if you are ever in Kenya and want to see the sights… drop me an email and we’ll show you the real Africa!
Chris Davies At the tender age of 19 Chris Davies has achieved far more than a lot of aspiring co-drivers could ever wish for… the bubbly Welshman has codriving on an amazing 74 rallies so far! And yet he admits that this is only the beginning. Having the ability to call upon the likes of Nicky Grist for advice certainly won’t harm his co-driving ambitions! Chris made his co-driving debut just six days after his 16th birthday, sitting alongside his father in a Subaru Impreza over the daunting Epynt Military Ranges. The pair finished sixth in class on that first rally and since then Chris has gone on to call the notes on no less than 18 rallies over those ranges! In fact, so hooked on the technical stages that these roads have to offer was Chris that he set up the Epynt Challenge in 2009, a series which proved to be hugely popular with organisers and competitors alike – 142 people registered in the first season alone!! 2009 was a crazy year for Chris as he co-drove on a whopping 32 rallies across the British Isles, sitting in a wide variety of machinery. From exotic Super 2000 machines right down to a one off ride alongside Geoff Jones in a 1400cc MG – quite possibly the highlight of the whole year, even if it did end in retirement! 2009 also saw Chris experience one of the most frightening crashes of his life when he and driver Phil Brown chucked their Subaru Impreza N11 off the side of a mountain at high speed (youtube – phil brown chris davies Subaru crash – it’s a good one!) 2010 has proved to be the best year yet for the young Welshman. After winning Group N and finishing fifth overall with Owen Murphy on the Malcolm Wilson Stages, he then secured a seat with Gary Kenna in an ex Tommi Makinen Subaru World Rally Car for the BTRDA Rally Series. A campaign with Roger Donnan in a Super 1600 Puma saw the pair win their class in the REIS Tarmac Championship but by far the biggest point in his career was being invited out to Zimbabwe to call the notes for Kenyan talent Quentin Mitchell. The pair duly took a fantastic third overall on the FIA African Rally Championship event and this result has secured Chris the seat alongside Quentin for the whole of the 2011 season! Random fact – despite being a true hearted Welshman Chris has admitted to preferring goats to sheep! ☺
KCB Amana “Coast” Rally Round 7 – Kenyan National Rally Championship 33 minutes to do 60 kilometres is pretty quick in any car. But considering it took us over an hour to recce that particular stage, run twice during the rally, it gives you a small inkling that it wasn’t the smoothest road in the world! In fact it was one of the roughest stretches of special stage I have ever seen… and yet the drivers loved it! Nine special stages, totalling over 250 kilometres, run around the Kilifi/ Ganze area on the coast of Kenya and this amazing 60km stage was the key to the rally. Have a good run here and you were on for a good result. Ian Duncan powered his V8 Nissan Patrol through the first run 38 seconds faster than anyone else… and then won the repeat by the same margin. Duncan’s winning margin was nearly one and a half minutes at the end of the rally and would possibly have been more if they had not cancelled a 34km section! Fastest out of the blocks was champion elect Alistair Cavenagh but, requiring only a top three result, the Evo 9 pilot throttled back and kept his nose clean. By contrast his team mate Carl “Flash” Tundo continued his season of dramas when he was forced to stop and change a puncture mid way through the longest stage, dropping over three minutes in the process. He staged a spirited fight back to take third, behind his team mate. Mechanical woes saw the demise of both local favourite Baldev Charger (Subaru Impreza N12b) and Lee Rose (Mitsubishi Evo 9), all the more frustrating after these two drivers had set top times early on. The Ugandans were out in force as well – but out of the five starters only two made it to the finish… the rest retiring as a result of some hefty crashes… fortunately only denting pride, body panels and wallets! Out of the two imports to finish Ronald Ssebuguzi flew the flag proudly by bringing his Subaru Impreza home in sixth position. Current Pirelli Star Driver Peter Horsey showed a solid turn of pace with a pair of stage wins during the day, but lost time with a broken damper early on and then was forced to stop and change a puncture on the final proper stage, eventually returning to the finish in fifth position. Brother Alex faired even worse when his Mitsubishi Evo 9 was forced out of the rally by a broken damper at the half way point! The rally also counted towards the 2 wheel drive championship with Adnan Suhail winning the class in a Daihatsu special. His time through the 60 kilometre long stage was some 12 MINUTES slower than the fastest time through this test!
Cambrian Rally Round 8 – BTRDA Rally Series
Steve Perez and Paul Spooner might have already wrapped up the BTRDA Rally Series with a round in hand but that did not stop the passionate entrepreneur from coming out to play on the final round of the series. And play they did – with no pressure on the Focus WRC pair they stormed off into the distance to take the victory by almost one and a half minutes! Second overall in his ex Colin McRae Focus was local driver, and former BTRDA champion, Hugh Hunter. Hugh at least took some consolation with three fastest stage times whilst recovering from a time consuming off road excursion on the third stage, made all the more frustrating by the fact that he was leading the rally at the time! Third overall and winning Group N was newly crowned ANCRO Production Class Champion Alex Allingham in his seven year old Subaru Impreza N10. All Alex needed to do was start the rally to win the Welsh National Championship and then he decided to prove a point and went off on a bit of a charge! Three fastest times in class helped him open up a commanding lead and then Alex just throttled back and let the others play catch up, taking the victory by 26 seconds. However, the talk of the rally were young Matt Edwards and Sam Collis in their 1400cc MG ZR. Matt had already wrapped up the title on the previous event but turned down an offer to drive a Group N car on his home rally to help co-driver “Sambo” clinch the co-drivers honours. Top twenty overall times for rapid 1400cc cars are not that uncommon and so his times on the first two stages, whilst dominant in class, were not out of place… but then on the third test, the Penmachno North stage, Matt stopped the clocks fourth fastest overall – ahead of no less than five world rally cars and a lot of bigger rivals! Proving that this was no fluke, Matt did the same on the very next test and was to eventually finish the rally a mightily impressive ninth overall and over one and a half minutes ahead of anyone else in class! The Historic section featured some top names all keen on a bit of practice ahead of the end of season Roger Albert Clark Rally. Phil Collins took an early lead in the class at the wheel of his pristine Opel Ascona 400. By the fourth stage he had acclimatised to the conditions and must surely have had his rivals worried when he went third fastest overall in the thirty year old car! However his charge came to nothing with halfshaft failure on the final test, thus allowing Escort pilot Tim Pearcey through to take the win from Paul Griffiths in his newly built example.
Up’s and down’s for GJM on Cambrian The Cambrian weekend was a mixed affair for people from the Geoff Jones Motorsport stable as the assortment of seven cars experienced a number of highs and lows on this tricky Welsh event. Neville Jones and Ian Capewell enjoyed yet another strong weekend in the Impreza N14, constantly on the fringes of the top ten overall and eventually finishing 13th overall after backing off over the last few stages to consolidate their position. The pair took the overall Welsh Gravel Clubman Championship after enjoying a season long battle with youngsters Dylan Davies and Dale Furniss and this was a just reward for Nev and Ian! Gary Kenna and Chris Davies were out once again in the ex Tommi Makinen Subaru WRC and the pair enjoyed a much better run out than their last event. After losing time on the opening stage behind a slower car, Gary admitted to loosing concentration for the next few tests but by the end of the day he was setting top ten times and was happy to end the rally fourth in class. Mick Smith and Paul Osmond had an important task ahead – they had to score well to take second overall in the hotly contested Rally First 1 litre championship and the pair duly did exactly that. Their little Nissan Micra did not miss a beat all day and Mick was pleased to finish second in class and take second in the series after a long season! By contrast the fortunes of Andrew Hockridge and Darren Garrod (Citroen C2 Max) and Gareth LloydDavies and George Gwynn could not have been much worse. Andrew and Darren both live remarkably close to the stages but neither had ever finished this rally before. And after spectacularly rolling out of this years event both have vowed never to attempt it again either! And the Lloyd-Davies/ Gwynn combination ended in a similar way on the third stage of the event, but fortunately all of the crews were uninjured, although the same could certainly not be said for the relative cars! And by the same token Nigel Seabold and Tim Barton had another event to forget. After a pair of reasonably competitive stage times in their Subaru Impreza N2010 the duo were lying eighth in class but then the engine let go without warning on the third of six stages and the pair were out for the day!
Photo of the Month
Peter Horsey took two stage wins on his home rally!