ROGER ALBERT CLARK RALLY

 

The cleverly named RAC Rally is Europe's premier historic forest rally and takes place in the North East and Southern Scotland this weekend. Details of where to go and who to see here
Historic rallying is supposedly a re-creation of what we did in the 70s, but instead of young men in battered cars it is now middle aged wealthy men in replicas of works cars that cost more than a small house. Still worth putting on all your clothes and sitting in a forest for a few hours though.

 

Video is from last years event and photo is of young men in a battered car in Broxa Forest in '76/'77.  Car was a Twin Cam, worth about £1,500 then and £30,000 now. I think we broke a halfshaft...

TAKE A LARGE BRUSH

Never underestimate a MK1 Escort. Only for the brave

50k

Take one good soild 1970s Escort 1100, add £50,000, you get this. Alans MK2 built as a stop gap while his proper rally car is being built. Ready later this month.  

READERS RIDES. ME.

Not often people send me photos of myself but Kev sent this one. Dalby forest probably Crystal Stages September '93 or '94.

RAC HISTORIC RALLY 2011

Spent Friday evening in Dalby Forest watching this years rally but forgot my camera so heres someone elses photo of current leader (probably winner by now) Gwyndaf Evans on Saturday morning. Cold but not as bad as
last year

EX WORKS WATKO

Dave Watkins is a walking skip full of facts and figures on the works Escorts of the '60s and '70s, this is the 5th one he has ressurected and as usual a top job. It is a '69 Twincam that competed on the Acropolis Rally of that year driven by Ove Andersson, he did reel off its full history but my attention span wasn't long enough.
Once finished he brings his cars to Tiddles next door to have the suspension set up and to his credit he then goes out and bounces them off trees as nature intended.





This one will be competing on the RAC Historic Rally in December. Hopefully better weather than last years event.

V8 ESCORT

Mike's Escort 3.5 originally built nearly 20 yrs ago by flathead V8 specialist Pete Robson and refined over the years. A real street sleeper. Half of North Yorkshire is waiting for him to sell it.

VISITORS

From yesterday afternoon, Mike's V8 Escort and Beano's 7/11. Mini features on both coming soon.

ESCORTING

STUBBO

Sideways Dave, 70 this year, 2.4 Escort for the track and a 1700 on the road, both as scruffy as him. Drives them with all the enthusiasm of a 17 yr old. Local hero.

18 YEARS AGO

18 years and 2 days ago i had a real tidy Mk2, 18 years and 1 day ago i had this. When people tell you you are doing well dont try to do even better.

RAC RALLY

Massive respect to everyone involved with making this rally run over the last 3 days and nights in pretty excepional conditions, to the 43 crews that made it to the finish (and the ones who didnt) and to the people who took these photos.


Former works Ford driver Phil Collins was 5th and first non Escort.

Bob Bean was competing on the first rally i ever went to watch as a lad is and still competitive and enthusiastic as ever.

Believe it or not this is Olivers Mount.

One of several Porsches from Belgium

Winner Stefan Stouff.

Local man Warren Philliskirk finished 15th.

Steve Perez finally finished the event in his wonderful Stratos.

RAC RALLY

In 2004 a group of folk organised a Rally for Historic cars based on the old time RAC rally of GB with stages in the forests of North Yorkshire, Cumbria and South West Scotland. Because of the expense of competing on such an event entries were a bit sparse for the first couple of years but now it has taken off properly with entries from UK, Belgium, France and Spain and is possibly the biggest rally in the UK (in terms of spectators at least). It takes place this weekend and if you are anywhere near the North of England you should be out there freezing your bollocks off in a remote forest or at Olivers Mount racing Circuit on Saturday morning..


Old cars being gently driven in a manner befitting their value..



There is a real good little film of 2006 event, part 1 here, try part 2 also.
Details entries and stage times http://www.rogeralbertclarkrally.org/index.htm

What else are you going to do on a cold weekend in November?

ALIRALLI

About 20 years ago Alioli drove on a few stage rallies with friend Kate navigating, they did well but came up against a few hazards that blokes dont have to face.

THIS IS NOT OUR KEV

Hero

KEVs ESCORTS

Remember Kev (11th March post) and the standard 1100 Escort MK1 from Malta ?


Not so standard now ...

TOUR OF MULL

The 41st Tour of Mull rally is now entering the final night, and after stage 11 its no surprise that the top 3 places are all Mull islanders. For the last few years Roy Jarvis of Malton company Ralloy Engineering has loaned his superb MK2 Escort to James Macgillivray who is currently 3rd.
The rally takes place on the islands roads (closed to other traffic) mostly during the hours of darkness. If you are thinking it must be a rally for Clasic cars you're wrong even World Rally Cars have entered in the past but the narrow bumpy and very fast stages mean that local knowledge is everything and these boys like their Escorts.



Top photo shows last years winner and tonights leader Callum Duffy middle is from 1970 and lower is James a couple of years ago.

NEWARK AUTOJUMBLE TODAY

SIMON McKINLEY

Most motorsport in Southern Ireland takes place on closed public roads either tarmac rallies or hillclimbs and sprints. If you are minted you have a WRC if not its rear wheel drive, all other 4wd and front wheel drive cars especially are for lasses. With the current economy in the state it is many WRCs are mothballed due to the running expenses but the Escort Mk2s are popular as ever.



This is Simon Mckinley, if you can drive like this you are a god. Turn up the volume, In to 1st, 8,000 on the clock sit back and enjoy if you like this have a look also at the first couple if minutes of Knockalla

PERSONAL ESCORTS

I spent from early 80s to around 1994 breaking, building and rallying Ford Escorts. I used other cars as well, Manta, Sunbeam, Lada, Renault 5, Vauxhall Magnum, Minis etc but mostly Escorts a few of which you can see here. Some of the photos have been pinned up in my workshop for over 25 years so are in a poor state. I could never afford to have a proper go but would build up a car and do maybe two or three events then strip it or sell it on. I had the blue MK1 (25) three times and still have the log book but the car was finally written off (not by me) against a plough parked next to a stage.
There were lots of events to chose from, you could probably do 12 rallies a year without travelling more than 30 miles from our town. Over the last 20 years most disused airfields have been dug up or built on, farm tracks are no longer available and the few forests we are still allowed to hire are very expensive. There are about 4 rallies a year now in our area.
Through my business Yorkshire Rally Spares, the name i still trade under, i stripped well over 100 Escorts and even sent perfectly good bodyshells for scrap because i had no room for them; also had a few quite famous cars with competition history which now are worth a fortune but then were just old rally cars.
By the end of the 90s cars were getting difficult to find and the resulting bidding wars to get them were making life difficult so i gradually moved my business to selling bike parts.
The final photo was after a very snowy rally using Cropton forest and was a result of being told we were doing very well !











Apologies to anyone who read the title and was looking forward to a post on "Sabrina of Leeds"