Summer Trial 2025 – Leg 2 Rally Report

Leg Two of the Summer Trial is the only full day of the rally, offering an opportunity to make up lost ground or consolidate a lead. Forget any first day mistakes, after all, what has happened on day one cannot be undone, and focus on learning from the first day in the saddle. With 165 miles to cover and eight competition sections, leg two was the meat of the rally, and would see a bit of a sort out amongst those with designs on the win.

The route for the day would be an anticlockwise loop south-west of Shrewsbury, heading into Herefordshire, before dancing briefly along the border with Wales and then heading east again and across the Long Mynd back to Shrewsbury. Much of the day would be on tight back roads, with high hedges and imposing verges a constant, and with a multitude of opportunities to change direction, the challenge for the navigators stepped up a gear from the previous day. The leg would see some tough regs, mechanical retirements and the influence of other road users impacting people’s performances. By the final MTC, there were only a handful of cars left who had not played their joker, used to reduce the impact of one bad score, meaning that almost everyone had made a mistake somewhere along the road.

There would only be one test, and this opened the competitive action, with a reverse of the last test from the previous day. The conditions had flipped as well, and the overnight rain had dampened the dust that had been a feature the day before and made the surface more slippery. That Mini Cooper S of the Day’s didn’t seem to be suffering for it though, with Christopher Day setting the pace again, though this time only a second faster than Malcolm Dunderdale, pushing the half-pint Renault 8 within a smidge of beating the Cooper. That time was equalled by Nigel and Sally Woof, in their red TR4, despite the lack of ground clearance in the Triumph.

The days first regularity began a couple of miles down the road from the test and was notable for a ford that had a small amount of water running through it after the previous night’s rain. It pitched through the villages, in much the same way that the second regularity would, villages that would often have a good crowd of people gathering to watch the cars, despite the less than summery weather. There was a short climb over Wenlock Edge, and, towards the end of the second reg, an incredibly steep and narrow descent that would require some nerve to maintain speed on.

By the time the mid-morning time control arrived, there had sadly been a cluster of retirements, indeed car 30 hadn’t started the day, after a clutch failure, and was joined on the non-starters bench by car 6 and 24. Car 56 then suffered engine issues that meant they couldn’t continue and car 81 and 66 had also pulled out by the time the first cars began to chip out of the TC at the Clive Arms in Bromfield.

At the sharp end of the competition things were fairly stable, but that was to change over the next couple of regularities. A pesky long-way-round a Godcake, that’s a triangular junction to the rest of us, would cause plenty of consternation and confusion just before the second timing point of the third reg. Indeed, the marshal on the post said that at one point he had nine cars arriving at once into the control. Included in those totting up the minutes here were Dick Baines and Miles Fieldhouse, though they were able to play their joker at least, and a glance at the penalties for the day would show that most of the field would use theirs up at this particular control. Others, like American crew Bill and Lauren Cody weren’t so lucky, and had to swallow the minute penalty.

The biggest news from this part of the day though was Paul Crosby and Pete Johnson in car 1 had suffered a half-shaft issue that would see them miss the fourth regularity as they rectified the problem, effectively putting the overnight leaders out of contention for the win. This meant that by the middle of the day the lead belonged to Malcolm Dunderdale and Anita Wickins. With Chris and Claire Day in second and Baines and Fieldhouse in third. 

A breathless morning, but still plenty of miles to go, though the weather was fixing to improve, with some sun even breaking through at points, though who it would shine down on during the afternoon was anyone’s guess. At least everyone was able to enjoy a lunch break on the tranquil banks of the River Teme, they would need the relaxation as well, as the regularity immediately after lunch was a 17-mile, 40-minute monster. It was almost a shame that the concentration levels needed to be so high, as the scenery that the reg ran through was stunning, especially now that summer was making an appearance in places. There were clouds hanging over one turn in particular, that despite being arrowed was being missed on a regular basis. Geoff Hilton and Rex Sandbach perhaps suffered some of the worst luck at this junction, as despite realising very quickly they had missed the turn, their attempt to back-track was derailed by a pair of tractors using the road to swap places in a field, just as they attempted to correct their error. The whole exchange probably felt like a lifetime for the crew of the Healey, though others would lose more time as they sailed past the turn without so much as a look back.

The next regularity was thankfully much shorter, though there would still be incidents. Phillipp and Alex Leibundgut would run out of fuel on a narrow climb, the AC Aceca ending up agonisingly short of a passing bay and almost blocking the reg, though luckily all rally cars could get by without losing too much time. Elsewhere oncoming traffic would cost rally leaders Malcolm and Anita Dunderdale a minute, as they met a car on a narrow section, with a gap that even the itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny-racing-blue-Renault-Gordini couldn’t fit through, in an incident that would also add further time penalties to Dick Baines’ day.

After all of this excitement, there was still one more regularity, and further problems for the MG of Crosby and Johnson, as they suffered a broken diff within sight of the days MTC. As the results were totted up the best performance of the day went to the Day’s, picking up just 26 seconds and still retaining their joker. Only eight cars managed to keep their total penalty for the day to under a minute, and closest to the flying Cooper were Anthony Clark and Colin Dykes, with a very respectable 36 seconds in the MGB Roadster. Retaining second from the previous day, despite their troubles, are Malcolm Dunderdale and Anita Wickins, 13 seconds back from the Day’s. Third place now belongs to the Nigel and Sally Woof, with a deficit of ten seconds to third, but only four seconds in the bank over Paul Hernaman and Ray Crowther in fourth, who still retain their joker. 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 once again.