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South West Endurance Rally 2006

South Hams Motor Club

10th-11th March 2006

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South Hams MC, with backing from audisouthwest.com, had laid out an ambitious itinerary for competitors on the South West Endurance Rally.

Starting in Newton Abbot at lunch time on Friday, crews tackled 17 selectifs and a regularity in South Devon before the overnight halt at Plymouth. An early morning start on Saturday was followed by 22 further tests and a final regularity before the finish, back in Plymouth, at ten o’clock in the evening.

The second day's route took crews around an anti-clockwise loop of Dartmoor, before several tests to the East and North of Bude. The long day continued with a test on Bodmin Moor and the final selectif at Penhale near New Quay. A regularity section took crews back to the Finish. One test, Assycombe, had to be cancelled a few days before the event due to logging activity in the forest.

Forty-seven cars started the Endurance Rally, with seven further crews entered in the Historic Rally. The start ramp was in the centre of Newton Abbot, with the mayor flagging off the cars as they headed for the first two tests at the Racecourse.

David Hallett/Chris Henley were in difficulty before the end of that second test, the clutch on their Skoda had begun to slip, the problem became worse and they eventually had to withdraw as the car ground to a halt on the eleventh selectif. However Chris Henley was to win the Spirit of the Rally award, having helped with the setting up and running of the regularity sections after his retirement.

The Battle for the Lead

There had been much talk prior to the event regarding how competitive 2005 Lombard Revival winners Jamie Turner/Graham Dance would be in their borrowed Rover 200. It didn’t take long for the question to be answered – they took fastest time on the first test and maintained the lead until the end of the event.

Chasing the winning duo home were other familiar endurance road rallying faces – Dale Glover/Sean Ward held second after four tests, fifteen seconds off the lead. Owen Turner and Matt Fowle, who had both won endurance rallies as drivers previously, teamed up with Fowle on the maps for the South West. They made a comparatively slow start but sped up and overtook Glover/Ward for second by the seventh selectif, a position they held until the finish.

Positions at the end of Day One were:
1 Turner/Dance 31m08s
2 Turner/Fowle 32m17s
3 Glover/Ward 33m01s
4 Heal/Appleton 33m12s
5 Freestone/Pelling 33m39s.

On Saturday Iain Freestone/Steve Pelling managed to catch and pass Paul Heal/Mark Appleton for fourth place on the third test of the morning, after that the top five positions remained unchanged until the Finish. These top crews were closely matched on all of the tests, swapping no more than seconds at any point, however throughout the day Turner/Dance managed to gradually extend their lead. Their win was assured by a superb performance over the final regularity, they dropped just 23 seconds, this compared to Turner/Fowle's 2m37s and Glover/Ward's 3m20s.

Turner/Dance arrived back in Plymouth, a slight dent in a wing being the only sign of their effort, with a victory margin of almost five minutes.

Class Battles & Misfortunes

Simon Bradley was taking part in his first rally for 14 years, he and navigator Roger Adderley were competing in the highly successful ex-Jamie Turner Metro. They were lying in fourth place as they set off on the regularity that completed the first day’s action, however a missed time control saw them plunge to 37th place by the time that they reached Plymouth. They recovered to 24th at the Finish, having once again been amongst the fastest crews on almost all Saturday’s tests.

Freddy Camp/Will Rutherford were another crew to struggle on the regularity sections. They were in seventh after the Friday selectifs, but a 15 minute penalty for a missed passage control dropped them down the order. They were setting top times on the Saturday selectifs before the catalytic converter on their Ford Puma disintegrated.

In contrast Roy Gravestock/Paul Robinson moved from outside the top twenty to ninth place after the Day One regularity. They suffered an eight minute wrong slot on the Day Two regularity but still finished in 10th place.

Mick Valentine/Paul Cornwell led the 1300cc class initially, but fell back during Friday and were eventually forced out with suspension damage on their Peugeot 106. Kevin Sherlock/Claire Sherlock had never started either an endurance or road rally prior to the South West, however they put in one of the performances of the event, they passed Valentine/Cornwell for the class lead by the seventh selectif and, despite having to work off their Toyota Starlet’s standard tripmeter, which was 20% out, they went on to win the class and take seventh overall.

Experienced co-driver Andrew Lees, driving on a rally for the first time, and partnered by Kevin Moore, had a steady run, moving up the leader board throughout the event, they finished in a highly creditable sixth place.

Another crew making their endurance rallying debut also managed a top ten finish, Chris Valentine/Chris Thorley moved into ninth place after they put up the second best performance, behind Turner/Dance, on the final regularity.

Tony McCarthy/Steve Yeoman won the 1100cc class in their Subaru Justy, although they had to nurse it home after it developed gearbox problems on Saturday. Michael Byrom/Jason Byrom might have taken advantage of their problems to take the category win, but had to miss some of the later tests after the car developed engine problems – these were later traced to an air filter which was clogged with soot.

Two endurance rally regulars had problematic runs. John Cotton/Gill Cotton suffered yet another drive shaft failure on their Citroen AX; the failure occurred almost at the start of the Friday night regularity. They had to be towed back to Plymouth, they managed to acquire a replacement shaft from a scrap yard and took the re-start on Saturday morning. However the missed tests and controls meant they finished dead last.

Jane Edginton/Gary Edgington missed two tests on Friday after the alternator failed on their Peugeot 106, they were lent a replacement by Matt Fowle and rejoined the event for Day Two. They then had the starter motor fail but battled on to finish in 33rd place.

Historic Rally

There was a close battle for the historic win, this was partly due to the fact that the selectifs had to be timed at 30mph for the Historic category, as opposed to 40mph for the Endurance Rally; as a result many of the crews beat the bogey on a number of tests.

Peter Horsburgh/Anthony Preston had done this on six of the first twelve tests, as a result they'd built up a healthy lead, however their event came to an end when their Mini lost its exhaust on the twelfth selective at Burton Farm.

Eric Richardson/Rob Henchoz, competing in a Volvo 142, took over the lead but were being chased hard by the Honda S800 of Martyn Baker/Mark Johnson. Both crews were to hit problems on Saturday; Richardson/Henchoz slid off the road into a ditch whilst circling a cone on the Witherdon test, they had to wait for the closing car to pull them out. To stay in the event they missed out three tests to make it to the next Main Control on time. Baker/Johnson also missed out three tests after problems, but were still in the event until their Honda’s engine failed on Penhale.

These dramas left the Volvo 144 GL of Christopher Winter/Charles Hamilton leading but only narrowly, the Escort Sport of Stuart Cariss/Linda Cariss was just twelve seconds behind at the Saturday lunch halt. In fact the Escort crew took the lead soon afterwards and by the finish of Penhale, the final test before the night’s regularity they were 1m20s ahead. The two crews were to have differing fortunes over the road section, Cariss/Cariss had a disastrous time, picking up penalties of 13m07s, in contrast Winter/Hamilton added just 3m25s to their total, this gave them the rally victory.

Roger Pinder/Jonathan Carter had held third at the Saturday lunch halt however they were forced out at that point when the water pump broke on their Dolomite Sprint. With Duncan Stonier/Bernard Northmore having disappeared into a ditch on Day One, it meant that just three of the Historic competitors made it to the Finish, Richardson/Henchoz surviving to take third place.

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OVERALL RESULTS

	Pos	Driver	Navigator	Car	Penalty
	1	Jamie Turner	Graham Dance	Rover 200	105m 43s
	2	Owen Turner	Matt Fowle	Rover Metro GTi	110m 19s
	3	Dale Glover	Sean Ward	Vauxhall Nova SR	111m 21s
	4	Iain Freestone	Steve Pelling	Peugeot 205 Rallye	112m 58s
	5	Paul Heal	Mark Appleton	MG ZR	116m 22s
	6	Andrew Lees	Kevin Moore	Vauxhall Nova	120m 37s
	7	Kevin Sherlock	Claire Sherlock	Toyota Starlet	123m 03s
	8	Chris Valentine	Chris Thorley	Peugeot 106 Rallye	124m 32s
	9	Marc Tipping	Tony Jolly	VW Polo	124m 57s
	10	Roy Gravestock	Paul Robinson	Vauxhall Nova SRi	127m 12s
	11	Jeremy Harris	Robert Nicholls	Talbot Horizon	128m 16s
	12	Andy Fields	Robert Fields	Peugeot 205	128m 24s
	13	Dave Smith	Pete Johnson	Vauxhall Astra	129m 14s
	14	Alastair Barnes	Simon Ayris	Peugeot 106 XSi	132m 13s
	15	James Smith	Joe Bain	Vauxhall Astra	133m 08s
	16	Jonathan Oldrieve	Jamie Watts	Peugeot 106 XSi	133m 34s
	17	Graham Yates	Richard Arnold	Peugeot 205 XS	136m 21s
	18	Steve McIlroy	Stephen Woodward	Peugeot 106 Rallye	136m 22s
	19	Tony McCarthy	Steve Yeoman	Subaru Justy	136m 57s
	20	Rob Reynolds	John Stringer	Peugeot 106 Rallye	138m 13s
	21	William Warmisham	Jamie Thompson	Peugeot 205	139m 22s
	22	Simon Weir	Alicia Miles	Skoda Felicia	140m 13s
	23	Martin Flight	Paul Lewis	VW Polo Coupe GT	141m 19s
	24	Simon Bradley	Roger Adderley	Rover Metro	144m 06s
	25	Edward Baker	Sean Jeffery	Citroen AX GTi	145m 11s
	26	Doug Dawe	Ernie Waldron	Seat Ibiza Diesel	145m 49s
	27	Barry Marsh	Paul Marsh	Vauxhall Astra	145m 59s
	28	James Campbell	Thomas Campbell	Proton Persona GLi	146m 02s
	29	Mark Banham	Paul Haylock	Suzuki Ignis	147m 50s
	30	Barrie Leishman	Graham Downing	Vauxhall Nova SRi	151m 36s
	31	Ann Weir	Brian Weir	Skoda Felicia	159m 20s
	32	Jeremy Crook	Gregg Catton	Vauxhall Astra	162m 15s
	33	Jane Eddington	Gary Eddington	Peugeot 106	166m 17s
	34	Gary White	David Gillespie	Peugeot 106 Rallye	170m 23s
	35	Adrian Robinson	Sarah Wiggin	Peugeot 106 Rallye	181m 05s
	36	Neil Parr	Dave Puzey	Peugeot 205 Rallye	210m 08s
	37	Michael Byrom	Jason Byrom	Rover Metro	244m 48s
	38	John Cotton	Gill Cotton	Citroen AX GTi	282m 00s
	Historic Rally
	1	Christopher Winter	Charles Hamilton	Volvo 144 GL	141m 20s
	2	Stuart Cariss	Linda Cariss	Ford Escort Sport	149m 37s
	3	Eric Richardson	Rob Henchoz	Volvo 142	194m 49s

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