HERO Challenge Championship Round Two – Silverstone

In a tightly fought HERO Challenge Two based at the Silverstone Golf Club and Hotel opposite the famous Grand Prix track, Angus McQueen and Mike Cochrane conquered the rally by just one second in a finish F1 would be proud of. After 150 miles of Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire’s finest lanes, six regularities and six tests, the duo who reunited after the RAC Rally of the Tests last year were on fine form in their Ford Cortina GT. They pipped the Bloxidge’s VW Golf GTi across the finish line by just one second!

Former HERO Cup Champion Paul Bloxidge, together with his son James who was navigating, had led the event at the lunch halt with McQueen and Cochrane in third place overall, and Dan Willan with Bob Rutherford Scholarship winner Miles Fieldhouse second. The tussle continued throughout the afternoon as Ken and Sarah Binstead nudged their Austin Healey 3000 into the fight. Yet despite the fierce opposition, the venerable Ford Cortina edged it over the VW Golf. Runner up Paul Bloxidge declared he needed his son James alongside him at every rally, not just on an annual basis after the father and son won HERO Challenge One in 2024 on James’ only appearance of the year.  

Three-time RAC Rally of the Tests winner Dan Willan was full of praise for his 16-year-old Bob Rutherford navigator after dead heating the Binstead’s Healey which was to be decided by the ‘furthest and cleanest’ rule, but it wasn’t necessary. Clerk of the Course George Mullins takes up the story; “In the end, we didn’t have to deal with the dead heat because we found that Dan had clipped a cone on the last test, which gave him and Miles a 10 second penalty dropping them to fourth overall. Without that they would have won!”

Although disappointed by the outcome, Dan said of Mile’s overall performance; “He’s a future rally star for sure. What impressed me was the amount of preparation work he put in last night and how he was asking me about Niall Frost, my usual navigator, and how he approached certain situations, he is keen to learn and use new techniques. I think he was very nervous this morning and made a few mistakes, he was cross with himself, but we talked them through, and he understood you have to then move on.

“For my mistake of hitting cone K on the final test, well at least we Killed it! We had both been laughing as the Valentines overshot and then I made the error which cost us the win! I had a great day and really enjoyed the HERO-ERA Arrive Drive Fiat 124 Sport Spider; it is a sweet car with a great engine and gearbox.”

Angus McQueen was happy to team up with Mike Cochrane again who has enjoyed spells as both a driver and navigator, finishing second as navigator to John King in his Lotus Elan plus 2 on the first HERO Challenge this year before jumping back into Angus’ Cortina. Angus was asked why he allowed Mike to jump back into his car? “So we could win! If you’re going to win, you need the best in the business.”

It was a fortuitous move for Mike as John King’s Lotus expired on the second regularity of the day, after it had been misfiring from the start. A disappointed John was left holding the burned-out distributor rotor arm, which was subsequently replaced, but too late to get the crew back into the fray. No points for John King today, but Mike Cochrane moves into the lead of the Navigator’s HERO Challenge Championship with Angus McQueen putting himself right up in the reckoning for the driver’s title alongside Stephen Owens with 15 points.

Ken and Sarah Binstead were delighted to reach the podium after pushing hard to get into the podium fight this morning, Sarah said; “You have to concentrate all the way through, we tried to keep it tidy, but there is always room for improvement.”

Despite having to correct an error and reverse on the new and successful test venue at Middleton Stoney, found by Deputy Clerk of the Course Stanka Obermajerova, double HERO Challenge Drivers Champion Alistair Leckie and James Holt managed to claim 5^th place to go with their fourth overall on round one. James was happy as he had been hoping for a top ten position.

It was a great day for the Belgian crew of Kurt Vanderspinnen and new navigator Guy Desmet after their journey over to compete in their fabulous Lotus Cortina. Despite rookie errors this morning, the crew were 11^th overall, winning their class and Guy won the Best Newcomer Navigator Award, he said afterwards that he would be back for more - on LeJog in December!

As well as 16-year-old Miles Fieldhouse winning the class with Dan Willan in the Fiat 124 Spider, 14-year-olds Zac Valentine and Freddie Hancox were second and third in their classes, Zac in a Ford Escort Mk2 with his father Mick, and Freddie in the glorious sounding Triumph 2.5 Pi of his father Jonathan.

There was a great performance on the tests by Nick Bloxham who was navigated by Nick Darkin in the Ford Escort Mexico to take the Test Pilot Award for the fastest driver over all the tests on the event, whilst Harry Baines was chuffed to receive the Clockwatchers Award for the best navigator’s performance on HERO Challenge Two. He and Dick Baines won their class in their Mini Cooper S.

It was a great event, over a great route with much of the hard work in putting it all together being down to Stanka Obermajerova, the Deputy Clerk of the Course, who summed up the day. “I think it went well, but it is with a mixture of relief and happiness that I say I think it was successful. I say that because with last minute road closures, it wasn’t easy! I think we had some angels looking after us today, we definitely we had help from above.

We had a fantastic team, everyone was on the go, constantly with great communication from the team. It was fantastic in that respect. Everyone I spoke to seemed really, really happy.”