Summer Trial 2024 – Leg 2 Rally Report
Day two of the Summer Trial, an opportunity to make up lost ground or consolidate a lead. The first day nerves should have been vanquished now, and any mistakes forgotten about, what has happened on day one cannot be undone, after all. With the best part of 200 miles to cover and ten competition sections, this second leg is the meat of the rally, get your teeth into this and there’s an opportunity to take control.
The playground for the day would be a clockwise loop around North Wales, down as far south as Llanadfan, and then back up through Bala and then onto Rhyl, before heading east back to Ewloe. These tight back roads of Wales, with their high hedges and many changes of direction offer plenty of challenges for the navigators, as they do the drivers, and there were plenty of opportunities to lose time. By the close of the day, there were only four cars left who had not played their joker, to reduce the impact of one bad score, meaning that almost everyone had made a mistake somewhere along the road.
The day included four tests as well, a remedy perhaps for anyone who might have been feeling claustrophobic, giving drivers the opportunity to let fly after showing restraint in the lanes. The first pair of these occurred at the Ruthin Cattle Market, on a navigation of the shed perimeters that rewarded those willing to take a few risks on the slippery surface. The mighty Mini of the Day’s put in a good showing again, fastest on the first test. 6 seconds faster than their closest challenger in the well subscribed Class 2 and beating second fastest overall, James Holt, by on second. On the second test though, this advantage was cancelled out, as the results reversed, and the BMW of Holt and Johnson were fastest by a second over the Day’s.
Back out on the road, and not all of the regs were on narrow lanes, regularity number two took place on the open moorlands of the Clwydian Range and Dee Valley National Park, south of Llandegla and Ruthin, an area known well to those from a stage rallying background. It’s stunning in this part of the world during the summer months, although can be a little busy, especially once the schools have broken up, so it was probably for the best that the day was a touch overcast in comparison to the previous day.
Things were going fairly well for those at the front of the field, although the Baines were slowly closing the deficit to the leading Elan. Test demons Holt and Johnson in third had made a mistake on the first regularity, and would play their joker, but were still doing well otherwise. The Westaway’s in car number 4, the Healey 100M, who had been fifth overnight were also turning in plenty of zeros on the timecard, as were Harrison White and Francis Galashan in the Triumph TR4A, that had started the day in 8th overall and leading Class 3. The two pairs that had rounded out the top ten on the previous day, Alexander and Max Geigy, and Paul Hughes and Hannah Jenkins, would both be forced to play Jokers for the very first timing point on reg one, with the Geigy’s dropping a further minute on the second timing point of reg two.
Mistakes aside, at least they were still in the rally, a point that could not be made for Paul Mills and Nick Cooper in the Mini Cooper S, that had been leading Class 2. A broken thrust bearing would leave them with no option but to retire, a great shame for the pair, whose day went awry after the first tests. They were not the only casualties that occurred at this point, with car 82, the Austin Allegro of David Hemstock and Colin Readwin suffering clutch failure and making it no further than Ruthin.
A breathless morning, but still plenty of miles to go, and under an increasingly leaden sky. Another pair of regularities followed the middle of the daybreak, the first of which ran alongside Lake Vyrnwy, and almost all of the way to Bala, with five timing points to contest, resulting in plenty of lost time and jokers being played. Although, not by anyone scratching about in the top ten, who all seemed to be coping reasonably well.
By the time the days fifth regularity had been chalked off the crews had made it back up to Denbigh, and almost to the day’s most northerly point at Rhyl, where a pair of tests awaited them at the behest of Rikki Proffitt, in one of rallying regular Rikki’s fields. It was at about this point that the ever-darker clouds burst, with a rain shower that could only have occurred in Wales. The field soon became a swamp, as car after car ploughed ever deeper into the soggy surface. It was tricky, with plenty of errors, including the Geigy’s who executed a near perfect 360-degree pirouette on the sebaceous sward beneath them.
The fastest time on the first of the Proffitt tests would belong to car 86, the Peugeot 205 GTi of Pat Bettridge and Andrew Holmes, with a time of 1:19. The next time around and the fastest overall were Masters Stephen Owens and Iain Tullie, in SO’s smart Porsche 356, with a time of 1:17s, seconded by Patrick Shaw and Chris Shaw, a second slower in one of the many MG B’s in the field – literally and figuratively in this case. Dick and Harry Baines, who spend most of their lives in fields, had struggled on the surface, finishing with a time of 2:28s, but by the time they had made it to the test, the ruts may have dwarfed the Mini. They picked up the pace a little for the second test at Rikki’s, but still left the field 20 seconds worse off than they had been, although their first placed rivals the number 61 Elan hadn’t fared much better, nor had the third placed rear wheel drive BMW of James Holt and Pete Johnson, that up until this point had been one of the best on tests.
After all of this excitement, one more regularity remained, and as the weather got worse, so did the day for Colin Newbold and Tony Brooks as they lost a heap of time in the middle of the reg. Even with their joker to negate the damage, they would still drop from first place to ninth, with 2:59s of penalty for the day. The Baines into first then? Well, no actually, sitting astride the top of the results sheet was a Mazda MX5, crewed by Rob Robinson and winning navigator Matt Outhwaite, more regularly seen with partner in crime Alistair Leckie. They had pinched the lead by a mere second, after posting a best on day 1:01s of penalty, vs the Baines 1:08s. Behind them James Holt and Pete Johnson had held third, just 12 seconds further back. It sets up an intriguing final morning of competition, before the first car crosses the line at around midday. Before that, there is the small matter of four regularities and three tests, plenty of opportunity then for the positions to change.