Report from Rally Car Magazine

TELFORD SHOWDOWN

NATIONAL RALLY REVIEW

After leading the Marlboro/ Autosport National Championship from the beginning of the year, David Gillanders and Ken Rees found themselves embroiled in a nail-biting three way battle on the closing stage of the final round of the series. In the end, they took the championship by only four seconds, after Pat Doran made a mistake with a tyre choice on the penultimate stage.

Everyone was on their toes at the end of the event at the Moathouse Hotel in Telford. Journalists scurried to each car as it came in, checking times to see if Gillanders had clinched it, or if either Trevor Smith or Russell Brookes had managed to take the title from under his nose. A closer finish it could not have been. Pat Doran was the man to upset the apple cart; if he could win he would ensure that either Smith or Brookes could win. Meanwhile, the latter two were battling to decide who could pick up the title should Gillanders fail.

Doran was leading as they approached the final two stages in Telford Town Park, but with it all to go for, Gillanders set out to win. The Brookes/Smith battle had to be settled by a tie-deeider, the latter having been fastest on the opening stage.

No-one had expected such a climactic finish to the season, once Gillanders appeared to be walking away with it during he season, but Russell Brookes had an inkling at the start of the year that a Group A car could just do it. ‘I don’t think many people recognised the implications of the new point scoring system when it was introduced said Brookes at the finish, ‘I wrote to Melvyn Hodgeson at the start of the year, telling him a Kadett could win it, and just look how close we came! He praised Smith’s performance this season, adding: ‘I hope Trevor gets the credit he deserves..he has driven brilliantly this year.

That could be said for many drivers in the series. Brookes himself contested the Championship merely to develop the Andrews Heat for Hire two litre Kadett, but soon found himself in contention for the overall title. And of course, Gillanders’ performances were superb in the British Car Rentals Metro 6R4. On the Cumbria and Quip rallies, the Scottish driver, and his Welsh partner Ken Rees, gave lack lustre performances, which opened the way for the Group A challengers to move in. But their charge on the last half of the final round was truly professional, and it would be sad to see Gillanders retire as he is threatening to do. Certainly, he has been one of the most entertaining drivers this season, and his last ditch efforts which saw him take the national title had everyone on the edge of their seats.

For the Scotsman, it was a close run thing. Although he had proven faster than any other driver on the opening rounds of the series (apart from Wilson of course) he seemed to loose his edge on the Cumbria and Quip rallies, bringing the Championship down to a last stage challenge. I'm absolutely delighted he exclaimed afterwards, if it all fails from now on, at least I can claim I’ve done something. While he admitted that his performances in Cumbria and on the Quip may not have appeared to be good, he argued that he was unfairly treated by the press (including ourselves), and there was reason behind his apparent madness, when we all thought he was throwing it away. ‘It was never easy he explained, ‘I got slated in the press for throwing it away, but it wasn’t fair. I was quicker than anyone on the early rallies, but when you’re ahead, you tend to loose the killer instinct. You drive carefully and safely, but you loose the competitive edge. On the Quip, it was a lack of local knowledge that caught us. I've never seen a forest like Dalby before, and neither had Ken, so we were very cautious, But the Cumbrian was a different matter. I'd been learning to fly a helicopter during the week leading up to the event, and after five days of intensive training, I was mentally tired. On Hindsight, I should have tied it all up there and then.

On the Audi Sport Rally, Gillanders found his old 'killer instinct' again. Caution was thrown to the wind, and although it was close, he still did what was needed to win. ‘The competitive edge came back on the Audi, and I did it when I had to. I knew I had to give it one, so I thought: 'Screw the local knowledge and go for it'.

Now for Gillanders and Rees, the future is unsure. The Audi Sport Rally was the MG Metro’s swansong in national competition, and thus the new champions will not be able use their car next year.

‘We have a super team here,' claimed Gillanders,'But it's a shame that we haven't now got a car to drive. Here we are with the experience and the ability, and we should be carrying on with an attempt at the Open series. We’ve lost our backing - British Car Rentals - not because they want to leave us, but because they can’t go forward with us; they'd be banging their heads against a wall. We've served our apprenticeship, and I could happily sit in any four-wheel drive car, like a Mazda or a Lancia, here would be no learning curve.

The man responsible for the close finish was arguably Pat Doran. The southerner, and his partner, Steve Harvey, had driven a superb rally, charging hard to take the lead on the second half of the event. There was much shouting, and half accusations at the end of the event, for with only a few miles left, Pat was leading by six seconds, and lost ten on the two short tests in the Town Park, handing Gillanders the lead and the Championship. He lost the time mainly because of a wrong tyre choice on the first lap of the spectator special, and when he set about regaining the lead on the final stage, he found Frank Meagher stuck in the middle of a hairpin in front of him, and at that point the rally was lost. Of course, Trevor Smith was bitter; he had done all in his power to secure the Championship, but the final result was out of his hands. However, he did not blame Doran, who was devastated at losing his last chance this year to prove what everyone suspected: he is capable of winning national rallies.

'I was just lelt punching the steering wheel,' said a very frustrated Doran at the finish, 'I could have cried. I was just left sitting in the corner like a school kid while Gillanders took the champagne. I think he deserved to win, but I can’t help feeling it should have been me. And what really annoys me is that I lost it for Smith and Brookes.

Doran had plenty of time to think about the consequences of his actions while driving the long road section to Telford for the final showdown at the Town Park. ‘It was an hour and forty minutes to the last stages', he explained, ‘That's a long time to consider what winning this event meant. I had a six second lead, and I thought it would be easy to win on the last few stages. I didn’t think Gillanders could take back the time over just a couple of miles. I was really feeling the pressure.'

He admitted that he started slowly, and that he could have built up a bigger lead which would have assured a victory, but he also had to contend with a broken gearbox, which started sticking on the first stage. This was replaced at the lunch halt, a unit being borrowed from Ian Beveridge, and he stormed the last two forestry stages.

‘We really went for it then,' he explained, ‘Maybe we should have attacked before then, but you get into a pattern of driving, and I don’t like taking risks too early. You have to drive with your head, and plan your attack, If you go drive fiat out from the start, you always go off. It was after a spin that Doran really started to attack. He was trying to make up time for his mistake, and realised at the end of the stage he was on the pace. 'I said to the lads at the start of the next stage: ’The rally starts here', and I took five seconds from Gillanders.

Everyone, including Pat, thought the rally was in the bag, but the final two stages proved disastrous. Almost all the other drivers had walked the Town Park stage the previous evening, but Doran had been working late on his car, and his decision as to which tyres to use was based on luck more than anything. He looked at which tyres other competitors left the service area on, and the general consensus to him appeared to be intermediates.

However, the stage really required forest tyres to be competitive. Gillanders, and others, he claims, pulled up to the line, where David Llewellin was advising them to change to forest tyres, which they did, but Pat didn’t get the message, as he explained: ‘Not a single soul said anything to me! I didn't know Llewellin, and he didn't know me. Even at this stage in the game it’s still who you know that counts on occasions. Llewellin did ask one of the lads who I was when he saw me on intermediates, and my man ran over to tell me, but by this time I was being counted down, so it was too late. It was terrible, I just couldn’t get any grip. I changed to forest tyres for the second lap, and I went fiat out to make up the time loss. I came up to the bridge, and people were waving me down. I eased up a bit, and when I came over the brow, there was Frank Meagher stuck on a hairpin. It wasn’t his fault, but it wasn’t mine either. I was all over the place, and I must have lost over six seconds, but I gave everything to the finish...It wasn't enough. As with the new Champion, the future looks a little bleak for Doran, even more so for the fact that he hasn’t had a win in the national series this season. He prepares the car himself, with help from John Lane, on a shoe-string budget, but he has proved the equal of the top teams this year, and if he can sell his Metro, he will be a formidable challenger in next year’s series.

He may have lost the overall Championship, but Trevor Smith did clinch the Group A title, and nothing should be allowed to overshadow that. It was a superb achievement for the Burford driver, and his co-driver Roger Jones.

Both Smith and Brookes arrived at the finish with identical times, but as Smith was fastest on the first stage, he took the series, and you can’t get closer than that! He was bitterly disappointed that the overall title did not go to him, but lie cannot be disappointed at his performance in the Hendy Ford/Draper Tools Sierra Cosworth, prepared by David Oliver.

‘Certainly on the last three events I’ve driven as good as I can drive Smith agreed, ‘Today, I knew I had to beat Russell, and I did it. I’m over the moon that we took Group A, but it’s cost us £5000 not winning the Championship overall which is a bit of a blow, but we're looking to win the championship next year. He agreed that he’d been placed under a good deal of stress during the rally, explaining: ‘I used to do a lot of autotests, and that was a game where everybody was psyching everyone else out, so l'm used to it. I don’t let it get to me. This is the first event that the car has gone right from the word go. I knew what the car was going to do all the way through, so that gave me confidence.

Not winning the £5000 prize money means now that Smith’s RAC entry is in doubt. ‘We need five grand to say ’yes we can do it’ he explained, I’ll maybe have to scrape around and find the money myself. I’ve put in a hell of a lot so far this season myself, so I’m desperate for help.

Without a great deal of support, however, he has achieved the Group A title, and that without the latest specification Cosworth. I won Group A today, and I beat Russell Brookes, and what anyone else did today was out of my control he asserted, I'd have been so disappointed if I hadn’t have beaten Russell. Despite this success, he does not see much support coming his way for next season. While last year’s Group A winner, Simon Davison, has gone on to great things in the Open Championship with full backing from Volkswagen Motorsport, Smith may well contest the National series again next year under his own steam with the help of Hendy Ford and David Oliver, although he admits his lack of support from Ford may have something to do with his age, as he explained: ‘It’s a pity John Talyor thinks I’m too old, but there you go. But you'd think Ford would come up with some support for the RAC. Ford has actually used us in adverts, and you don’t even get any thanks! They didn’t even ask me if they could do it!‘

One cannot argue that the tale of the Audi Sport Rally, or the whole series had an unhappy ending. Apart from Pat Doran not taking at least one win this year, everyone it seems, got their just deserts.

Gillanders' performances this season have been mostly consistent, and if he had not won the title, one would have felt that he had been robbed. Smith was rewarded with the Group A title he so richly deserved, and he cannot be disappointed at that! Whatever, they all kept us waiting with neither title was decided until the finish line of the final stage!