Race Retro

The 10th International Historic Motorsport Show, aka Race Retro, was once again held at the NAC Stoneleigh. We did our usual mix of the show on the Friday, including the auction and the subject of our adoration the Valvoline Lola T70 MkIIIB, before catching the live action over the weekend. The show this year celebrated Lotus and Renault Alpine, who were both well represented on the feature stands in halls 1 & 2. On the rally stage we had a new stage layout, more cars on stage at one time and a greater number and diversity of rally cars then ever before.

Riponian Stages Rally

On only our 2nd visit to the Riponian we witnessed Charlie Payne & Craig Thorley (Focus WRC) return to form. After a slow start to the Wyedean last weekend they set fastest time on the opening 5 stages and joint fastest on the 6th stage to hold a comfortable lead at service. The afternoon saw the top 4 exchange fastest stage times but the damage had been done and Payne took a 55 second victory from Ian Joel & Graeme Wood (Escort Cosworth). Peter Stephenson & Ian Windress (Focus WRC) completed the podium ahead of Kevin Proctor & David Bellerby (Impreza WRC) who had lost ground in the first half of the rally.

Wyedean Forest Rally

Well there was no ice to contend with this year on the Wyedean, instead we got mud and lot’s of it for our 30th time on this event. Going into the final stage the top 4, (a Welshman, Scotsman, Englishman and Irishman), were separated by just 11 seconds going into the final stage. Sadly Euan Thorburn & Paul Beaton (Focus WRC) were first to fall. They did not make it through stage 7 and dropped from 2nd place overall. Hugh Hunter & Andy Marchbank (Focus WRC) were leading going into the final stage but came out of it 10 seconds behind the eventual winners, some ten seconds down. This left David Wright & Michael Wilkinson (Evo IX), who was 3rd, battling for the lead with Connor McCloskey & Francis Regan (Impreza WRC).

Cotswold Clouds

For the 2nd year in a row we have taken in a trial in the early season. With Clee Hills being cancelled we instead headed down to Stroud & Dursley for the Cotswold Clouds. We watched on the wonderful named Crooked Mustard and Merv’s Swerve, both of which were challenging for all the crews, (in fact only one crew cleared Merv’s Swerve). As is the way with trials it all comes down to who has the fewest penalty points and with just 22 points, John White (Beetle), took overall victory and class 4. Joint 2nd with 25 points each were Keith Sanders (Scimitar) in class 5 and Carl Talbot in class 8 and the only the crew to clear Merv’s Swerve.