Rally Car November 1992

ELONEX MIDLAND RALLY

Mobil 1/Top Gear British Rally Championship: Final Round

Whatever else can be said about the Elonex Midland Rally one first of all must pay tribute to Wolverhampton & South Staffs Car Club for having the sheer guts and doggedness to run the rally at all. The Mobil 1/Top Gear British Rally Championship has staggered through a horrendous year and, with the Midland already sacked from the 1993 plan, there was little incentive for the John Trevethick led Midland organising team to contemplate financial suicide by running at an all too obvious financial loss. At the last minute up stepped Richard Burns' main sponsor Elonex to provide financial backing and, just about, make the thing a goer.
All praise, then, to Elonex for putting something back into British rallying and to the organisers for being plain stubborn enough to effectively pull the RAC's chestnuts out of the fire.
For, with the overall championship decided, there were still Issues to be settled. The GpN championship (a potential three horse race between Louise Aitken-Walker - retiring after the Midland - Alister McRae and the rank outsider Paul Dyas), the Lombard Junior title (a scrap between Jonny Milner and Mark Higgins) plus the Skoda, Peugeot and Vauxhall one make series all depended on the Midland.

What was on offer was a curious affair. Two early evening blasts In darkness around Weston Park, a painfully protracted (six hours disguised - by the fact that the end of British Summer Times meant the clocks went back by an hour - as five) "halt", then a night into day 8 stage loop in mid-Wales followed by a further two runs of Weston Park. The idea was to cut costs by removing the need for hotels but, when one considers the five hours wait for prizegiving, it was a long old rally of which by far the most dangerous part for the majority was the drive home in the evening after something like 30 hours of being involved in the rally.
The weather, too, played its part. Early stories that snow was falling in Dyfi proved unfounded but the night section was lashed by a horrid melange of fog, high winds and torrential rain. Whatever else the Elonex Midland Rally was, it was a tough old night?
At least there was some competition for Colin McRae and, thanks to the arrival of Tommi Makinen's works Nissan Sunny GT-iR, Subaru's planned pre-RAC test session turned out to be a real battle; one that was not finally decided until the final Weston Park stages on Sunday morning. Only once this year (when Bertie Fisher briefly held the lead of the Manx) has McRae been headed on a British Championship event but this was a whole new ball game. The first Weston Park saw McRae jump into an immediate 3 seconds lead. But Makinen's Nissan had a touch of the misfires and, with the magic spray eradicating that fly in the ointment, it was a charging Finn who levelled the scores after SS2. Coming out of the first forest stage (the horribly muddy and fog shrouded Hafren) we had Makinen a huge 21 seconds in front, despite clanging the rear on a log pile, largely thanks to McRae not having the correct fog light setup on the Subaru. The fight was on!

Further back, the GpN and Junior battles were conforming to the script. Alister comfortably headed Louise (despite the Shell Scholarship car going through gearboxes at about the same rate as tyres) and Milner was plodding round ("an old man could drive a shopping trolley faster than I'm going tonight") while Mark Higgins charged In the Nova.
Things weren't all sweetness and light in the Vauxhall camp as the world debut of the new shape Astra 16v was the signal for lots of nasty little mechanical gremlins to come crawling out of the woodwork. Dave Metcalfe was 9th after the first stage, 8th after the second and then bang on the pace through Hafren to move up to third. It all came to end in the first Gartheiniog when a driveshaft broke and the new car was retired. There was talk of doing some more stages for further testing but that came to nought and the team have some work to do if Metcalfe is to set the forests alight on the RAC.
Vauxhall's Formula 2 competition in 1993 looks likely to be Peugeot (rumours abound of a return by the Coventry based team) and Richard Burns was back in the marque which brought him to prominence, driving a 309 GTi 16v for the Midland and for the RAC. Burns had a traumatic start to the Midland with a huge overshoot into the crowd at the hairpin on SSI and then caught Milner's pedestrian 205 in Hafren and lost more time. The real problem, however, was electrical. The car’s engine would stutter and cut out intermittently and the cause just couldn't be traced. The problem came to a head on the second run through Gartheiniog where Burns lost over 4 minutes with a dead engine. The culprit, eventually, was proved to be the ignition on/off switch, but Burns would have to settle for 11th and a class win.

The Peugeot GTi Challenge saw Brendan Crealey with everything to lose and nothing to gain from trying too hard. To win the series and the RAC drive Crealey needed to "do a Milner" and simply finish in the category top 11. Mark Lawn and Ricky Evans could only attack and hope that Crealey non-finished. Not much hope of that from the taciturn Crealey. He has worked hard for his prize all year and a measured drive to 17th overall ensured that the reward wasn't lost. Lawn broke his car's rear beam in Hafren, lost a vast amount of time, but still deserves credit for continuing to finish next to last overall when many would have thrown in the towel. Evans and Ian Butcher, at 16th overall, at least had the satisfaction of beating Crealey but they are just one of several Peugeot crews who must hope next year is kinder. One brave story from the Challenge concerned GpN front runners Guy Anderson/Ant Rands. They needed just a few points to win the 1.9 GpN award but ate something that violently disagreed with them and contracted suspected food poisoning. Guy had to stop in one stage to be sick, an action which brought Ant out in sympathy. Grey faced, and with the co- dnver driving the road sections, they did just enough to stave off Simon and Yvonne Haskett at the close of play. Of the 53 international starters on the rally, no less than 28 were Peugeots.
The Vauxhall Nova GSt Super Challenge went right down to the wire. Just half a point being the winning margin for Wrexham’s Mike Williams over last year's winner Richard Forster. Steve Green took third (despite rattling the Atkinsons hired Nova) and Geoft Stewart can take some consolation from fourth. Consolation because hrs car ended up a ball of scrap after a frightening roll on the fast downhill section of Dyfi Main. Williams championship payday was £10,000 to spend on contesting the Lombard RAC .

The Shell Skoda Trophy has a factory GpA Favorit Lombard RAC drive as its top prize and the crew this year will be Les Andrew/NIck Middleton. Second spot (a paid for entry • using their own car • plus Dunlop tyres and £300 from Shell) goes to Knaresborough's Mick Smith and John Brook while third placed Chris Beavan/Will Wharton get an entry plus £200.
McRae and Makinen, however, will still going at It hammer and tongs as dark night turned to grey morning The Hafren 21 seconds deficit was cut by 18 in the following Pantperthog then transformed into a 4 seconds lead through Gaitheiniog. Makinen should now surely follow the script and give way to the charging Scot. Maybe Tomml wasn’t reading the same script, he continued to charge and came out of the second Pantperthog 5 seconds in the lead That’s where the Finn stayed through the remainder of the forest stages, emerging from Dyfnant 3 in front with just the two Weston Park tests to do. The ford was deeper, much deeper, than it had been the previous night, and the mud on the verges ensured that MRS tyres (Pirelli for Colin, Dunlop for Tommi) were the order of the day. Colin was faster by 2 on the first run and wound himself up to ’full banzai’for the last Makinen did the same time as his first run, Colin Improved by 1 to run out winner by 2 seconds. The only sour note was that .Makinen claimed to be baulked by a slower car on his second run (lower order crews on their first attempt being slotted in among the leaders as they did the stage for the second time) but co-­driver Harjanne promptly doused any flames of controversy, saying '"unlucky, yes _ but this was in the ivies You know, maybe we don't have the Gods to help this night.. but it was still a bloody good fight with Colin.

And so It was. A breath of air into a championship which has almost perished from lack of oxygen. But that has been 1992 and. as new series co-ordinator John Horton was at great pains to point out all weekend, 1993 starts here and now The new format, some fresh organisational thinking and the renewed interest of several manufacturers thanks to the Formula 2 concept mean that prospects are far brighter now than they were at the same time last year... and that can only be good for rallying.
And, while that fight had captured imaginations and stirred hearts, there was an action replay between Trevor Smith and Alister McRae, the Weston Park stages settling the battle for third place Trevor won that one, when Alister slid onto the grass and lost 10 seconds, but It was ’mission accomplished for both men: Alister confirmed as GpN Champion and the ’find of 1992" and Trevor finishing runner up in the overall championship, the best result he could have hoped for against the might of McRae and Subaru.
A brilliant 5th for Mark Higgins (but serious doubts as to whether funds will allow him to start the RAC) and an emotional finish ramp champagne goodbye to Louise Aitken-Walker; ironically after one of her best drives of the year, a fighting 6th overall.
Milner finally got fed up with Peugeot ’handbagging" and charged through to 7th and the £10.000 Lombard Junior title while Mick Jones, despite a lack of tyres and a badly smoking engine, gave the finisher's list some appropriate Welsh flavour with 8th overall.

And that was 1992, that was. A year which has been one of sad contrasts. A brilliant season for Colin McRae, but a year in which recession and the cumulative effects of too many years of organisational complacency hit hard And the Elonex Midland Rally? That hit hard too. a tough event in the old style. If Elonex don’t sponsor the rally next year (and. yes, the organisers believe that there is life after the British Rally Championship) can we suggest Bryant & May ... they manufacture the matchsticks which most people were using to keep their eyes open on Sunday evening.