Rally casualties in the Welsh forests
This year's Express and Star British National car rally started from Dolgellau today short of some of its most famous competitors but with about 140 of the original 170 entrants.
Pat Moss wired the organisers. Wolverhampton and South Staffordshire Car Club, to say her car, had not bean put right in time after the Tulip rally in Europe last week, and the same applied to another, non-starter, last year's winner, Malcolm Gibbs.
This meant that barring accidents the winner could probably be picked from a very short list which would read: Roy Fidler (Triumph 2000); John Bloxham; (Cooper S) and Tony Chappell (Lotus Cortina).
From Dolgellau competitors face total of 300 miles before the finish at Llandudno tonight. In that distance all the competitive motoring is confined to 125 miles of Forestry Commission and other private roads split into 24 special stages, each of them timed to the second.
These stages have target times' ranging from 99.0 seconds to 11 minutes and for every second late over those times competitors lose one mark. Mechanical trouble hit some competitors' early in the event.
RADIATOR TROUBLE
Shortly after he had started M. J. Telford and his navigator were back at the start mending the radiator of their Saab with pliers and sealing compound while another competitor had to renew the bearing in his engine before he could start.
Early reports showed that the second stage In Coed-y-Brennim forest was an early trouble causer; with 11 punctures among the first 50 or so cars and the exclusion of a favoured mixed crew, Miss Pat Spencer and Roger Farmer, who holed the sump of their Mini after it had taken off over a rough patch.