Steve Hill ended his season in winning style with victory in the Midland Rally, but the event was also a useful pre-RAC test session for the works Renault and Nissan teams.
Report: Keith McGhie.
Steve Hill emerged from the shadow of already- crowned champion Chris Mellors to take his first ever outright victory in a round of the Mintex National rally series. The Bulldog Midland Rally was also the first time the former road rally champion had been seeded number one on a major forest event, although the inclement autumn weather never afforded the kind of advantage pole position gave during the series’ dry and dusty earlier visits to Wales.
Mellors, servicing for Brian Lyall, was there to witness Hill’s ever-quickening Mitsubishi Lancer withstand fierce pressure from a posse of works F2 machinery, who were using the event as a final shakedown for the Network Q RAC Rally, but the Oxford driver didn’t falter.
“It was a shame Chris wasn’t out there today because it would have been close,” enthused Hill as he showered co-driver Stella Boyles with champagne on the finish ramp in Aberystwyth. The 25 second win over Mark Higgins’s works Nissan Sunny also ended a six-year wait for his Scottish born navigator — her last event win was in 1990.
Mellors may have been absent from the entry list, but victory was never going to be easy as Robbie Head, in one of four factory Renault Maxi Meganes, showed on the first five-mile test in Lianafan. The Scotsman was four seconds faster than Higgins, with Hill only fourth. The Greens Restaurant-backed Mitsubishi pilot responded on SS2 to join Head at the top of the leaderboard then, despite being pipped by the Nissan on SS3, moved ahead overall — a position Hill never again surrendered.
The longer stages with tight bends were always to his advantage as intermittent heavy showers made the ground slippery. “We lost ground on the uphill hairpins but the car was fantastic on anything downhill or with quick corners,” confirmed Higgins. “We’ve been trying different things throughout the day and didn’t come here for a result, but it’s great to get that as well.”
Serge Jordan expressed contentment with the progress made on gravel since his Morigannwg outing in July to finish fourth and, whilst Head struggled with the gears, team mate Gregoire De Mevius posted fastest time on the first of two runs through Gartheiniog - SS5- to move up to fifth.
Lyall continued his RAC Rally build up with sixth place, ahead of the Escort Cosworths of other Mintex regulars Jonathan Bennett Evans, Mark Perrott, Marcus Dodd, whose newly-bought, ex-Tim Ellis Jones car was his first experience of left- hand drive.
Lancia stalwart Steve Smith, hampered by a misted windscreen over the early stages and losing time through a spin in Hafren, failed to emulate his third place on the 1995 Bulldog Midland, but still emerged in a best ever third place overall in the championship.
The fourth Renault, in the hands of double World GpN Champion Alain Oreille, was relegated to a comparatively lowly 11th, but this was put into perspective by it being his first outing on gravel this year, with a new co-driver — Bruno Brissart — who had never used maps before.
The season-long GpN battle between Jeremy Easson’s Ford Escort Cosworth and Steve Petch’s Subaru Impreza was to prove as dramatic in its outcome as it had been breath-takingly close throughout the previous six Mintex rounds. The age-old rivals had rarely been separated by more than seconds — on the Manx National they had actually tied on time — and arrived in mid Wales knowing it was winner takes all.
The Bishop Auckland Subaru dealer was marginally quicker on the first three tests, then Easson clawed five seconds back in Hafren, but Robbie Head wasn’t the only one to have problems on SS5 and the Leicestershire man’s Escort struggled out with a blown turbo. Petch’s lead was now over a minute, but this suddenly became a seemingly unbreachable three minutes as Easson found his second turbo was also faulty and incurred road penalties swapping it again.
Eight seconds back in Pantperthog was inconsequential and the title seemed to be heading for Co Durham, until disaster struck midway through the 14-mile SS7. One by one the Subaru’s gears began to disappear until Petch emerged with just third. A frantic roadside gearbox change was not quick enough and, although he negotiated the final stage without a sumpguard and with loose bolts rattling below the car, his challenge was deemed OTL.
Easson’s service crew waited at the start of SS8 to confirm the news that he had achieved a third successive showroom title as well as picking up another very welcome, £1000 Ford Parts Bonus for the highest-placed GpN Escort Cosworth.
Despite voicing frustration at having to drive partially for a finish Davies’s Steve Blackham prepared GpN Vauxhall Astra led the category from the very first stage, untroubled by Paul Dyas who withdrew when his RS2000’s gearbox, cracked on the Trackrod, failed to come back in time, or Hefin Harries, whose Peugeot 205’s ECU burnt out before SS2.
The damaging roll on the Manx and blown head-gasket on the Trackrod became just memories, as he built an F2 lead of over three minutes, from Martyn Price, to secure the Mintex title and Safety Devices Amateur award. Price, in his first full season of rallying, was happy enough to secure the N2 class title after a season’s dual with fellow 1600cc Honda Civic driver Charlie Exton. The Durham man’s late surge in the series also netted the Auto Express Junior award, for under 25s, after a tie-break with Steven Quine, whose hopes of adding to the already- secured N3 class title disappeared with a broken bottom arm on SS3.
Exton had to be content with the free Network Q RAC entry, gained for leading F2 after the Morgannwg, and second in both class and F2, in addition to the Emiliani Honda team’s ongoing fund-raising ventures for a cancer unit at Lincoln Hospital.
Welshman Harries still took the A7 Mintex crown, as Dyas was the only “likely entry” capable of denying him, whilst Shelly Taunt’s N1 success, in a recently- acquired Skoda Felicia, was too late to deprive the absent Mark Stokoe the smallest class title or Andrea Hall the Teleflorist Coupe Des Dames.
The exploits of Brackley’s ‘fast bird’ — as a sticker on the rear of the car proclaims — were enough to clinch the, £2,000 ladies title, plus a further, £250 Ford Parts Bonus, which should go a long way towards putting her own wheels back on the road in 1997.
Paul Taylor’s AMBR Vauxhall Nova claimed an emphatic fourth maximum score of the series — the Sutton Coldfield man won every round he completed — to snatch the A6 crown from the grasp of John Blaber, although both ended on 70 points. The Chessington driver’s Peugeot 205 finished every round except the Trackrod, but was without a win and the tie-break rules show no regard for consistency.
Mike Roberts was determined to make hard work of taking the Welsh GpN crown. Starting the day six points clear of closest rival John Lay’s Escort Cosworth, Roberts suffered from power steering failure, before managing to put his Sapphire on top of a pile of logs for three minutes in Pantperthog. Finally the front diff exploded, leaving him to struggle around the last two stages with just two-wheel drive, to finish 52nd — three from the back of the pack. Both drivers were left tied on 116 points, but Roberts was adjudged champion on a tie break. Lay had the consolation of claiming Group N in the Evans Windows Clubman’s series.
Not expecting to beat a Cosworth was the 1954 Volkswagen Beetle of Michael Hinde who, for the third time, proved-a diverse attraction among the Mintex regulars, whilst Peter Lumsden’s Saab 96 also continued to support the recently-introduced Historic classes, which will again feature in the series next year
Dave Humphries’s Escort Cosworth took the four stage Meirion Clubman’s Rally by a huge three minutes and seven seconds, whilst John Keatley’s Porsche 911 eventually came out on top after day-long dice with Jimmy McRae’s Lotus Cortina in the Bulldog Historic event. McRae, the only man capable of denying Keatley a second successive Demon Tweeks Classic and Sportscar Championship, needed to win and led after two stages. But Keatley went ahead in Tarenig and, after trading times with his rival, held on to take an 18 second victory to clinch the title.