Me and my brother Michael spent an enjoyable day doing the EDMC scenic tour in Michael’s Peugeot 205 GTi. The tour started from Ruddington Transport Heritage Centre with a stop at Rutland Water Whitwell car Park for lunch and finished back at the Transport Heritage Centre. We signed on in the cafe at the Transport Heritage Centre and enjoyed a breakfast there. We were car 2 and started the event at 10:02.

Patrick had fitted the rally Terratip in Michael’s car to help us with following the road book, but when we set off we realised it wasn’t working properly as the milage was not counting up. We downloaded a rally trip meter app onto my phone which got us through the first leg. The first leg of the event took us through some lovely countryside and up roads we would probably never think to go up normally. The organisers had included an information sheet with interesting facts about some of the places we would pass by which was a great idea!

At the lunch halt we had a picnic lunch and a coffee from the cafe. We downloaded the instructions for the Terratrip and realised that it hadn’t been working because the trip wasn’t in GPS mode. Once we reset it to GPS mode it worked fine!

We followed the route for leg two back to the Transport Heritage Centre and arrived back in plenty of time to look at some of the trains and buses on display. We finished the day with a nice meal in the cafe. Thank you to Charlie, Steve and Mark from EDMC for organising a great event.

It has taken me a few months to sit down and write this. Before the rally I knew that I would have trouble remembering what had happened each day so I decided to leave myself a series of voice notes summarising each day of the event, with my thoughts. I listened to those voice notes to try and jog my memory of what I thought of the stages on each day and any problems and successes we had. However, the notes now make very little sense to me and mostly seem to be a series of rambling and correcting myself. On that note, I will try my best to summarise the five days of the Roger Albert Clark Rally and our experience of it. 

Our friend Adrian Drury did the RAC rally in 2021 and this was when we really started to think we would like to do it too. We had two years to prepare ourselves, the car and a service team for the event.  In March 2023, entries opened. We were delighted to find out that we had got an entry. Tyres were purchased, hotels were booked, Pacenotes were ordered, routes were reviewed, information packs were produced, Simon and Nigel Hunt were persuaded to come along and service. My brother Michael was roped in to come and do ‘catering’. Charlie Knifton decided he would also like to do the rally and would build a new group A spec Peugeot 205 for it. As most of the work on our car Betsy was done at Charlie’s farm we became a team. 

Day -1 – Tuesday 21st November

Apart from myself, my license and the Pacenotes I only had to remember one thing. To bring the spare fuel can from my shed in Tewkesbury with me to Derby. I forgot it. This meant we had to borrow one from Simon at 20Ten racing. The one we ended up with leaked which resulted in a not insignificant amount of petrol being spilt in the boot of my car when we filled the cans at a garage in Heanor. After driving some miles with all my car windows open to air out the petrol smell we returned to Charlie’s farm in Smalley. We finished packing up the service van with food and drink and dispatched Michael and my uncle Peter to buy a bucket and sponge for cleaning the car numbers and windows. We decided to meet at Charlies Farm at 7am the following day to travel to Carmarthen. 

Day 0 – Wednesday 22nd November

We set off for Carmarthen at just gone 7am. We arrived at the Livestock market just after lunch and unloaded the car from the trailer ready for scrutineering. Scrutineering was very straightforward and the car was passed. Then came the trouble with the trackers. The trackers were surprisingly large and we hadn’t realised that the units would need to be mounted in a position where they could ‘see the sky’ which had the potential to restrict the drivers view. We eventually got the trackers fitted to both the rally car and chase car with the help of a nice man from GeoTrak and an extra length of cable to lengthen the cable fitted to the car already. After signing on we checked into the hotel and had some food. We were apprehensive about the ceremonial start in the town centre in Carmarthen, thinking that not many people would want to stay to see the little cars. We were so pleasantly surprised with the amount of people who were there to watch! We queued along the street to get to the start ramp and were amazed to find ourselves driving into a sea of people. We got asked to sign autographs by some of the younger people who had come to watch. It was definitely worth it for the experience of seeing so many people excited about rallying. 

Day 1 – Thursday 23rd November

After seeing us off onto the first road section Peter and Simon took the trailer to the trailer park at Walters Arena. We headed off for Crychan 1. It took a while to remember what to do, the last time we did a forest rally was in 2018. We enjoyed Crychan and Cefn. On Crychan 2 I lost my place in the notes which probably contributed to us being 30 seconds slower than on Crychan 1. However the surface had deteriorated with so many cars over it, so I feel I wasn’t entirely to blame. At some point during Walters Arena 1 the power steering stopped working. It was the first event that we have done since the power steering was fitted to Betsy and it would have been annoying if it had only lasted half a day of a five day event. Simon and Nigel changed the pump in the service and it seemed to behave for the rest of the day. Walters 1 was rough. Walters 2 was rougher and Patrick felt it had ruined his day. However we had finished day 1 with only minor issues. We discovered at the end of Thursday that there were two Clio’s running in our class, which we concluded must be turbo charged. The following day Nigel went to talk to the CLO and made him aware that the Clio’s were most likely turbo charged and by the start of Saturday they had been moved out of our class. Phew!

Day 2 – Friday 24th November 

I can’t remember anything about Esgair Berfedd so my conclusion is that it went ok. Myherin was very, very muddy and slippy, but at least not rough. The Sweetlamb part of Sweetlamb/Hafren was very rough and rutted and meant we didn’t really get going until later in the stage when we went into Hafren. On the second run over Sweetlamb/Hafren the combination of watersplash and putting the spot lamps on killed the engine and we sat for a few seconds in amazement before the engine would restart. Friday night and the transit leg up to Carlisle is a blur of short sleeps in the car, coffees in petrol stations and Simon and Nigel jet washing the rally car at a garage somewhere along the route. We finally got to bed in an Air B’n’B ‘borrowed’ from Charlie at 01:30 on Saturday morning*. 

Day 3 – Saturday 25th November

Ae and Dalbeattie were lovely stages. A bit of frost made for a great photo of the car in the stage. The service at Newton Stewart seemed to be on the longest road in the world. Especially when I walked/jogged the length of it after being dropped off near the in control to use the facilities. On Glencaird Hill 1 we hit a bad bump before a bridge and the heavy landing shot us almost completely off the road. On Glencaird Hill 2 I made sure to call out the bump and we got over it in a much more controlled manner. At the end of the day we realised that between us all we had forgotten to bring the trailer up to Newton Stewart. It was a long, noisy drive back to Carlisle in the rally car. Me and Michael made it to the hotel in time for last food orders in the adjacent pub and basically inhaled burgers and chips. We had mostly been surviving on pot noodle up until then. Three days of pot noodles will drive even the most dedicated pot noodle fan away from them. Patrick, Simon and Nigel stayed in service at Carlisle to work on the exhaust manifold on Betsy. They ended up changing the manifold for the spare and welding up the broken one. Then came the highlight of the week for Patrick. A chicken curry with rice and chips in the Carlisle market cafe. 

Day 4 – Sunday 26th November

I felt very travel sick on the first two stages and was grateful to get back to service and take some anti-sickness tablets. The cough and cold that I’d had since before the rally started got a lot worse on Sunday and so I’m having a lot of trouble remembering what happened. Patrick’s recollection of Sunday is that the stages were very rough and bumpy, but he expected that from Kielder and was prepared. The manifold that had been replaced on Saturday night got damaged again in one of Sundays stages and once again Simon and Nigel changed it. This time in 45 minutes in service! Amazing! When checking stage times on Sunday evening we realised that Roger Mustoe in car 171, our close competitor and who we had been swapping class positions with must have had a problem in Harwood 2. We found out from Roger on Monday that he had gone into a ditch. He was there a long time waiting to be recovered, but said he was so tired he was glad of the rest! 

Day 5 – Monday 27th November

Monday was all about preserving the car (and the crew!) to be able to do ‘The Big One’ – at 39 miles it was the longest stage I had ever done. We were both looking forward to the long stage. Me because I’d never done a stage that long and Patrick because he had done long stages in the past and knew what a challenge they could be. After the morning stages we went into service over the dam at Kielder and made sure that the car was as ready as possible. We had two new tyres and Betsy even got a wash! Following this we had a two hour wait in a holding control whilst the order of the field was reversed and then we were off to ‘The Big One’. We were going quite well (so we thought) until 10 miles from the end of the stage the brakes failed. We backed off to try and nurse the car to the end of the stage, we didn’t want a stage maximum so close to the end of the event. Somewhere in the last 10 miles an escort caught us up and we moved over to let him past. We were surprised that he didn’t pull away from us very quickly and we followed him to the end of the stage. After the finish control we both stopped and the driver of the escort came over and explained that he had been on his roof in a ditch and the co-drivers Pacenotes were lost somewhere in the car. He had wanted to follow us to the end of the stage, not for us to let him past!

We made it back to the service in Carlisle and decided that we would like to go over the finish ramp. It felt like such a huge achievement to finish the event! We were especially pleased not have any nominal times. We were also delighted to have finished third in our class and to get an award at the awards ceremony. The event was fantastic and very enjoyable despite the challenges (both competitive and logistical) and we would very much like to do it again in 2025. If anyone knows of someone looking to sponsor a blue Peugeot 205 XS please let us know! 😉 

*Charlie had returned to Derby to try and mend a broken engine and so didn’t need to stay Friday night in the cottage he had rented near Carlisle. He was kind enough to let us ‘borrow’ it for the night. 

Due to the fact that we didn’t do any rallying in 2020 and the Red Car has not been out on a rally since I did the Corinium Stages in it, my Dad took the decision to sell it to someone who would make more use of it. I initially said I would buy it as I thought it was shame to sell a 205 GTi, but eventually decided this wasn’t the best idea. It has therefore gone a friend of a friend in Lincolnshire who absolutely loves driving it around the lanes there. We still have the blue 205 XSi ‘Betsy’ and now have the new white Targa spec 205 Trio. My Dad is already wondering if he should buy a 205 Rallye…..

I think most people’s experience of motorsport in 2020 is probably fairly similar. We started off the year with a list of rallies that we would like to enter and ended the year wondering if we would ever rally in the same way as we had pre Covid-19. We didn’t compete at all in 2020, despite the restarting of most forms of motorsport in a Covid-19 secure way.

I had booked to do a novice track day at Mallory Park in the Red Car in April 2020 and up to the announcement of the first lockdown in March was still widely optimistic that it would go ahead. I had booked 2 x 20 minute driver coaching sessions and was very much looking forward to the day.  Of course it wasn’t able to go ahead and I have not managed to re-book yet, but am hopeful that I can do it at some point in the future.

The better news from 2020 is that we have a new Peugeot 205. It has been converted to Targa Rally spec and can also complete in Autosolo’s, Sprints and night Road Rallies. We haven’t done any events in it yet, but if I ever get round to re-booking the cancelled track day I will take it to that. It’s pretty quick, despite only having a 954cc engine.

Fingers crossed that 2021 and 2022 are better years for motorsport for us than 2020 was.

As we weren’t competing in the PokerStars rally we decided that we would offer our services as marshalls for the event. On a previous Manx National Rally we’d lost stages due to lack of marshalls so we thought we would do our bit to help out.

Isle of Man event services booked our ferry and accommodation for us and Manx Autosport had kindly offered to refund 50% of the costs of travel and accommodation for anyone who travelled to the Isle of Man to Marshall on the event, which was a very welcome added bonus.

We were booked to travel on the 14:00 ferry from Heysham on Thursday 7^th November. However, due to a forecast of high winds that sailing was cancelled and we ended up travelling on 02:00 sailing on Friday 8^th November instead. Not ideal when we needed to be signed on on Thursday evening. Chris the chief Marshall was very understanding and agreed that we could attend signing on on the Friday morning instead. I spent the extra time at home making some alterations to the MSA Marshalls tabards – me and my Dad had both been sent XXL tabards, which even over big coats still looked a little roomy. With a few added darts and tucks they were a bit better fitting.

We arrived on the Isle of Man at 06:00 on Friday 8^th November and had time for a few hours sleep in the hotel before heading over to the grandstand to sign on. For the Friday night leg of the rally we were going to be at Junction 8 of SS 4/7 Back of the Moon and for the Saturday leg we were going to be at Junction 8 of SS 9/12/15 Staarvey. We were the last marshalls to sign on and I think there had been some discussion about whether we were going to turn up or not! As an added bonus we were given a PokerStars woolly hat, a Manx Autosport thermal mug, a hand warmer and a key ring each – I do love gifts!

We spent the rest of Friday visiting Terry and John at T&J Auto’s in Peel. We took a trip to the Calf of Man and had lunch in the Sound Café. After stocking up on cup-a-soups, instant coffee and other provisions for the night we headed back to the hotel to put on lots of layers of clothing for the cold night ahead.

We arrived at Junction 8 of SS4/7 and met Claire, who was also marshalling in the same spot. Junction 8 was a modified junction so together we moved the bale and cones into position as per the diagram we had been given at signing on. Once the roads closed at 19:00 we moved the signs and cones into place to block off the access roads. We then had a bit of a wait until the first car and it was getting very cold! We could see ice forming on the roads and the bale in the junction. After what seemed like a very long wait the safety car came through and we gave the MSA delegate a thumbs up as we had been requested to do. We could now hear the sound of rally cars in ‘doing mode’ from other stages and were getting ready for the course cars to come through. However, due to ice forming at the next junction down from ours we were informed that our part of the stage had been cancelled due to dangerous conditions. What a shame not to see any cars at all! We dismantled the chicane, removed the bale and cones to the side of the road, removed the road closed signs and went back to the hotel hoping for a good nights sleep and a better day on Saturday.

The weather that greeted us on Saturday morning was not bright and sunny. The rain was already nearly torrential and the wind was definitely blowing strongly. We got a little lost on the way to our Junction 8 of SS 9/12/15 and arrived later than we intended to. When we got there we started to set up the box junction, which was very difficult in the strong winds. The barriers and tapes took on a life of their own and flew about wildly before we managed to secure them to nearby trees. We took respite from the rain by sitting in the car until the Safety car came through and then went to find a safe spot to stand in. It was great to see so many spectators out to support the event, despite the horrible weather. There was a steady stream of people coming to watch throughout the day. This time we got to see all 3 runs of the stage. Between runs we had to escape to the warmth and dry of the car as the weather got steadily worse throughout the day. Even the most waterproof of clothing begins to leak after 6 hours in the pouring rain. We were surprised and grateful to be given a packed lunch by the organisers. Thankfully there were no accidents at our Junction and once the roads were open we took down the box junction and removed the road closed signs. The rally was won by Aaron Newby and Rob Fagg in a Subaru.

On Sunday morning we travelled home on the 08:00 ferry back to Heysham. My Dad says he’s done his bit with marshalling now, he’s fed up of getting cold and wet. I hope I can persuade him otherwise though, I had a brilliant time.

After the Tour of Caerwent in March 2018 I had finished enough events as a driver and collected enough signatures on my MSA upgrade card to apply for a National A rally license.  I did this with great glee and was very pleased to receive the new license. 

The Corinium stages which is run at Down Ampney by Cirencester Car Club was next on my list of rallies to do. Down Ampney is near to home for me and is a single venue event. I decided we should go over to the venue on the day before the rally to scrutineer and leave the car in the service area. At scrutineering we discovered that the cut out switch had seized up due to the car living outside for several months between rallies. A bit of WD40 managed to solve the problem and the car passed scrutineering ok. 

The following morning we arrived back at the venue to set up in the service area and sign on. It had been raining overnight and the track was still fairly wet. It was my first experience of driving in the wet and I was fairly concerned that I would spin off at the first corner. I was pleasantly surprised that I managed to get through the first lap of the first stage with no spins, even managing to prevent a spin. On the second stage I caught up another Peugeot and managed to stay with him. I can only assume the wet conditions were causing him some trouble as it was the first time I have ever managed to catch another car in a stage. I was getting to the point of being brave enough to overtake when he went the opposite way to me at a split and saved me the trouble. 

The stage got drier as the morning went on and there was no more rain during the day. The car wouldn’t start when we were leaving service to go to stage 3 and we thought perhaps the starter motor was failing. It still wouldn’t start after a bit of encouragement by tapping the starter with a hammer. We had to get a push start from a service crew across the service area from us. I daren’t turn the car off again between the service out control and the stage arrival control in case it wouldn’t re-start. During stage 3 I spun off and wasn’t quick enough the press the clutch to prevent the car stalling, however it didn’t start again ok with no need to get a push from a Marshall. It did continue to be a bit temperamental at starting after sitting in service and we had to be pushed a few more times when leaving the service area. 

There were four stages in the morning and four in the afternoon going in the opposite direction. I preferred the afternoon stages (I’m still not sure why – perhaps I prefer travelling anti-clockwise), but I wasn’t as fast in the afternoon as I was in the morning. 

I really enjoyed the event. The venue is great offering good, challenging stages that don’t feel repetitive. I will hopefully be putting in an entry for next years rally. 

After the disappointment of not getting to the start of the Manx National in May 2018 we decided to try again on the PokerStars rally in November. This time we entered in the blue Peugeot 205, with me in the co-drivers seat and my Dad driving.

Our previous trips to the island have prepared me for the fact that it is likely to rain heavily on the Isle of Man, particularly when you have gone there to do a rally. On this trip however, the rain was the worst I have seen.

When we completed our recce of the stages on Thursday the ford on SS3 (Brack a Broom) was a fairly fast flowing stream that made crossing it in the Skoda Octavia we used as recce car a little bit worrying. By the start of the event on Friday evening it had swelled with so much water that the rally organisers were forced to change the position of the stage start to after the ford as there were concerns that any cars crossing the ford would be washed downstream and end up in Peel harbour. This was not the only section of the stages to be water logged. At the start of SS1 (Little London) we were warned that there was deep standing water by Little London farm, but before even reaching this section we encountered very deep puddles and saw multiple cars drowned out and stopped at the side of the stage. We did spend about 2 minutes stopped on this stage behind several cars struggling to make it through the water logged area at Little London. The stage start of SS2 had also been moved about a mile further into the stage than originally planned due to standing water. On the approach to the arrival control we drove through water so deep that the bottom spot lamps of the car were underneath it. It wasn’t just on the stages that we encountered problems with the extremely wet conditions. We even saw cars drowned out on the road sections and had a few tricky moments trying to get through deep standing water. After the first 3 stages we headed back to service and were told at the service in control that stages 4, 5 and 6 had been cancelled due to the extreme weather conditions. I was very relieved at this news as I feared a second run through the stages might damage the car and end our event, but my Dad was disappointed. He had been enjoying the challenges of the conditions.

The rain did stop late on Friday evening and by Saturday morning it was looking a lot drier. We had a good run through the stages on Saturday with only one minor mishap. As the stages dried out further over the course of the day we were able to go faster and got caught out by some mud on a medium right and ended up sliding gracefully into a wall on the outside of the corner. There was no damage and we carried on, but this little off cost us about 20 seconds. We finished the rally 3rd in our class. It was the first time I’d won a trophy on a Manx rally, which was very exciting and made slogging through all the water on Friday night very much worth the effort.

It had been 18 months since the blue Peugeot 205 XS (Betsy) had been out on a rally. The last event being the Hall Trophy rally in November 2016. She has been modified to compete in Ireland and the Galway summer rally was both mine and her first event over there.

There were three stages, each repeated three times. We had chosen to use Pattersons Pacenotes and it has been a while since we last used them on tarmac. We made a few minor changes during the recce on the Saturday, but were happy with them overall. After the recce we headed to scrutineering. It felt a little strange not to have to go to noise check first. As usual scrutineering made us a little apprehensive but the scrutineers put us at ease and explained the paperwork we had to fill in to give the specification of the seats, belts, fire extinguishers etc. The car then had to go into Parc Ferme and remain there until the start of the event.

Sunday morning was an early start to pick up Frank, who had kindly volunteered to be service crew for us. He dropped us off at Rally HQ in Galway for the drivers briefing and headed off to the service area at Tuam. After the drivers’ briefing we got a lift to Parc Ferme from a friend of Frank’s to go and start the event.

The first loop of the three stages went well. It was nice to be back in the blue car on some good, fast roads. After the fourth stage the car wasn’t ticking over very well and cut out a few times. Frank and a friend of his who had come to help out changed the spark plugs and that seemed to cure the problem. The next time we came into service there wasn’t a lot to do, just a quick change of tyres and re-fuel. We had started the day on wets in case of rain, but these were no longer needed.

The second and third passes through the stages were excellent fun and we really enjoyed them. It was a very nice surprise to find out that we were running 1st in class. We finished the day 1st in class, which we were very happy with. What a great end to my first Irish rally. It gave us a boost after the disappointments on previous events this year.

Thanks to Galway Motor Club for a fantastic, well organised rally and some great stages. We hope to be back next year. Thanks also to Frank for so much help and advice on rallying in Ireland and for being service crew.

Since the Red Car’s completion last summer we have entered five rallies in it. Three of them with me as the driver and two with my dad as the driver. Of the five rallies entered only three were finished…the ones with me as driver. My dad is now starting to take this personally. The red car behaved impeccably on the JRT Enville stages, Hall Trophy Rally and Tour of Caerwent, but unfortunately we weren’t so lucky on the Cambrian and the Chris Kelly Memorial Rally (IOM).

On the Cambrian a gear box fault saw us out of the event on stage 5. The gearbox oil all drained out and 5th gear seized up. The teeth that broke off 5th gear caused damage to the others and the whole box seized up. Although we were annoyed not to finish we were finding the event very hard going due to extremely rough roads which were causing damage to the car.

The bigger disappointment came on the Chris Kelly in May on the Isle of Man. After several weeks of hard work prepping the car, days spent making pacenotes and all the effort to get to the event the cam belt snapped in service just 1 hour and 45 minutes before our start time. With the help of Heidi in rally HQ and another competitor (sorry, I can’t remember his name) we managed to find someone with a spare cam belt for a Peugeot 205. Adrian Drury and Cat Lund in car 102 were very kind to help us push the car all the way across the paddock to their service spot so it could be worked on under cover – the rain was torrential. Cat’s friend Mark came to lend a hand and did an amazing job in trying to help us achieve the impossible and start the event. Despite best efforts from my dad, Mark and Adrian’s service crew we didn’t make it out on the event – the engine was damaged when the belt snapped. We spent Friday night chatting to crews in the service area and wishing we were out rallying. On Saturday we went out spectating, which was fun, but not quite the same as competing.

We’re very grateful to the man from ERO who gave us the cam belt – we tried to find you in service on Friday night and on Saturday but kept missing you. Thanks also to Adrian and Cat, Mark and the other chaps who worked on the car and to Heidi for not letting us give up without trying to fix the car. My brother Michael and Peter, my uncle, tried their best to keep our spirits up and got thoroughly soaked helping us push the car around. I’m hopeful that it won’t be our last trip to the Isle of Man and that next time will be more successful.

The Tour of Caerwent fitted quite nicely into my rallying plans for this year and is only an hours travel from home, so was a good choice for my third event as a driver. Before submitting my entry I watched some YouTube video’s from previous years and was pretty excited at the idea of doing 10 mile stages without laps, splits or merges. My entry was accepted and I was seeded at car 81. The day before the rally the scrutineers, the ladies at signing on and fellow competitors all had the same piece of advice for me – ‘don’t cut!’ The roads all have kerb stones which are ready and waiting to cause damage if not respected. As I’d never been to Caerwent before one of the ladies at signing on gave me lots of advice about how to drive there, including the apparent randomness of the junction numbers and a warning about the infamous ‘quarry’. If I wasn’t apprehensive before I was then!

With the words ‘don’t cut!’ still ringing in my ears I started the first stage and promptly cut a corner…thankfully the kerb was kind to me and no damage was sustained. I found my first visit to the quarry a little nerve racking, but I got through it o.k. On each subsequent pass I managed to go a little faster. After the first two stages I was really enjoying the challenges of Caerwent, despite getting a little lost on one of the stages and ending up doing a bit of mud plugging trying to find the road again. On one of the stages I had a spin at a 90 left, but, despite stalling I didn’t loose too much time.

I had track day tyres on the car as I’d had trouble getting any heat into the slicks I used at Blyton. On the track day tyres I managed to get heat into the fronts and even the rears were luke warm! I felt like I was going much better on this event than at Angelsey and Blyton.

On the last stage of the day I had a near miss when I lost the car under breaking at a 90 left, slid onto the grass and nearly tipped over the edge of a bank. I avoided rolling as the car wedged on a tussock of grass and finally came to a stop teetering on the edge of the bank. I hardly dared to move in case it over balanced and we ended up on the roof. We eventually got the car back on the road and carried on to complete the stage, managing to drop only 3 minutes 15 seconds, which meant we didn’t get a stage maximum. It took a while for the adrenaline to subside though!

I ended the day 51st Overall and 16th in class 3. And I now have enough signatures on my upgrade card to get a National A license! Happy days