New Race Rally 02 Reports.

Want to see your Race Rally car here, email me info & some images; richstern@hotmail.com

Another busy eight days

Saturday, 2nd August and a leisurely run of just 50 miles to Elvington near York for the Keith Pattison Sprint. Elvington, like most other airfield circuits, is open to the elements and when it's fine it's great but at any other time it's horrid! There were 2 other BMW's entered - an E46 M3 and a E30 325. In my class there was just a modified MGB. Scrutineering and practice were uneventful as I re-learned the course which was laid out with cones. It's a bit like driving quickly on the motorway throught the roadworks without the worry of Armco. On the first fo my timed runs my problems started as the electric petrol pump played up intermittently and possibly cost me a second or two. Initially I thought the problem was due to minimal petrol in the tank but after topping up the fault re-occured on the second run so it was out with the spanners to try and cure the fault. I checked the pipes and the pick-up in the tank but on the third run the problem was still there. Fortunately there was a cloud burst at this point which stopped the proceedings for about half an hour and I was able to borrow a spare fuel pump from another competitor. On my final run the car ran faultlessly but I could only close to within a couple of seconds to the MG.

Saturday, 9th August I headed west to Kirby Lonsdale for the Devil's Own Rally where I met my new navigator, Nick Cooper. Sometimes on these historic rallies the entries are sub divided by capacity and age into various classes but on the Devil's there were just two classes, experts and novices. We were running in the former and were seeded 23rd in a field of 60. The daytime part of the rally consisted of 20 tests at various venues around north Lancs and the southern Lake District. By the time the event started it was raining and it continued to rain for the whole of the weekend. The tests tended to favour Minis and more agile cars but never the less we were disappointed to be down in 19th at the tea halt. When this famous rally ran for modern cars there was a 200 mile night section but these days in deference to the historic cars which compete today the night section is a mere 90 miles with a petrol halt after 45. The rain was relentless and was running off the fields causing flooding everywhere. It was clear it it was going to be a matter of surviving the atrocious conditions and just going as quickly as possible instead of trying to maintain the set 30mph average. Some of the water was over a foot deep and frequently ran over the bonnet whilst at times the wipers were unable to cope. At half way the field re-grouped and found a section was to be cancelled at the course opening car had become stuck in the floods. Eventually, after driving along more flooded and almost impassable narrow lanes, collecting signatures and times from the marshals who were soaked, together with codes from the code boards at the unmanned controls en route, we made it to the finish at the Punch Bowl Inn, Low Bentham for a well earned 'full English breakfast'. Whilst the competitors swapped tales the organisers calculated the results and we were absolutely delighted to find that we had finished fourth overall, a result which puts me second behind a 911 in the GK Ford Northern Historic Rally Championship. Incredible that we had climbed from a lowly 19th to just outside the top three - a mere 16 seconds behind the third placed competitor. The top six are as follows and our next event should be the Durham Dales in September.

1st Pete Tyson / Neil Harrison Mini Cooper S
2nd Michael Pedley / David Pedley Escort Mexico
3rd Dave Marsden / Mike Garstang Lotus Cortina
4th Mike Smailes / Nick Cooper BMW 2002
5th Simon Parson / Trevor Catermole MG Miget
6th Ross Butterworth / Ali Procter Lotus Sunbeam

A Busy 8 Days with an '02

6th July. Leave home at 6.30am for a run across to Penrith (80 mls) to meet my navigator for the Cumbria Classic Caper. This is a 100 mile classic rally with over 40 entries. Once again the class opposition is mainly Escorts but for a change there was another BMW 2002 entered, the Tii of Neil Morrison, plus an Alfa Guilia and an MG B GT which made our class the biggest with 12 cars. After some excellent tests along farm tracks and private roads we were pleased to finish 10th overall and 3rd in class.
10th July. Late afternoon departure to Warwick (180 miles) and overnight at my brother's before a 5am start and run down to Goodwood for the Speed Festival. Back home by 11.30pm via Warwick, over 400 miles in the day.
13th July. Left home at a reasonable 7.30am for Harewood and the 'Northern Concours', just a mere 60 miles. This was a great day and like the previous week the sun shone. There were over 100 BMW's parked on the lawn of this stately home but only 4 '02s though which was a little disappointing. However, we did 'clean up' in the pre- 76 class with Les Bush's immaculate Tii 1st, Stu Levee's excellent Touring 2nd, and my '71 saloon 3rd. The 4th '02 was a dark green saloon which wasn't entered in the concours but it was nice to see never the less.
14th July. 7.30am start again but this time just a mere 15 miles to Croft for the BMW Car Club's 'Better Driving Day'. There were over 50 members and their cars on the track with lots more cars to see and members to talk to in the car park.

Reckoning up, I did just over 1000 miles in the 8 days and the only attention the car required was regular refuelling - no oil or water was necessary.

On 2nd August I will be competing again. This time on a sprint at Elvington near York and the following weekend I have an entry for the 2 day Devil's Own Rally in north Lancashire which is sponsored by Bateman's BMW.