A cold, damp Carlisle on Saturday 25th April saw the start of Round three of the 2015 MSA Mintex British Historic Rally Championship.
A cold, damp Carlisle on Saturday 25th April saw the start of Round three of the 2015 MSA Mintex British Historic Rally Championship. Awaiting the crews was the daunting prospect of 50 stage miles through the notorious Kielder Forest complex.Phil said, “It is over 30 years since I’d last been in Kielder, but in that time it has retained its reputation as a really tough place to drive.”
Running at the back of the field for the first time under the new regulations, Phil knew it was going to be a tough task to get the little Mini to the finish.
“Even though the surfaces in Kielder are very firm, we expected that the stages would cut up in places because of the number of cars ahead of us. We decided to adopt a more cautious driving style to try and preserve the car.”
“Kielder is notorious for fast flowing stages with lots of blind crests. If you get it slightly off line, you’ll come to grief in some very big ditches,” explained Phil. “We worked hard on the pace notes before the event to identify the danger corners and it paid off.”
“The combination of blind crests and fast corners caught many crews out and one in four of the cars crashed out.”
A combination of the preparation work on the pace notes and driving cautiously saw Phil and co-driver Alan Walker finish 1st in class B2 and 4th overall on Category 1 (pre 1967 cars).
The Mini was prepared by RSR Historic Engineering and ran flawlessly all day. The service crew just put fuel in the car and never laid a spanner on throughout the rally.
“Three starts. Three finishes. Three first in class,” beamed Phil. “What a fantastic start to the Championship!”