Round nine: Minilite Historic Somerset StagesMartin Freestone and Joanne Lockwood ended the championship season with a commanding win on round nine of the HRCR Classic Stage Rally Challenge, the Minilite Historic Somerset Stages (29 October).
With the 2005 championship settled in favour of Gareth Lloyd/Ryland James on the previous event, Freestone/Lockwood could not improve on a final second place in the championship, but were determined to win the last event of the season in their Escort Mk2 RS1800. "I won the South West championship in 1982 – I used to live in Devon," said Freestone before the start of the Minehead-based rally. "This is my home ground, but do you ever remember stages?" It was also their first event together using maps rather than pace notes.
With two runs at the Porlock toll road to start the 10-stage event, Freestone/Lockwood shot into an immediate lead, going 25s clear on the first four-mile climb. That set the tone for the day, with Freestone eventually finishing 1m38s ahead of the rest of the Classic pack. "Some of the forest stages were a bit rough, but we've had a good day," reported Freestone.On each of the four runs at Porlock, Freestone/Lockwood were easily fastest, but it was much closer on the stages in the Knowle and Croydon forests. Dick Slaughter/Geoff Dearing and Ian Rix/Daniel Stone had excellent runs in their Escort RS1800s and sometimes matched Freestone's pace on gravel. Rix was particularly pleased to take his first Classic fastest stage time on the final 9-mile blast through Croydon.
The battle for second raged all day, with Slaughter/Dearing just getting the place by 16s. However, they arrived back at the finish in Minehead minus the bonnet of their Escort. "We needed to go quickly on the final stage so we were shedding bodywork," he joked. Rix clawed back another six seconds on that final stage, but Slaughter had done enough despite running some pretty old rubber for the Porlock stages. "We've had a very good day," added Rix after an excellent result.
Fourth overall should have gone to Julian Burch/Gethin Jones in their Talbot Sunbeam Lotus after an excellent run. Unfortunately, alternator failure late in the day put them out. Having an experienced driver alongside for the day had really pushed Burch along well and his times had been well in touch with the Escorts until the car ground to a halt in Knowle 2.Class D4 fell to Michael and David Pedley in their Triumph TR7V8. Running on asphalt settings from the Manx Rally was okay for Porlock, but they struggled somewhat in the forests and were relieved to see the finish, fourth among the Classics. "It's not really a car for these forests," joked Michael at the finish.
Final Classic finishers were Don Simmonds and Brian Thomas in their Mk2 Escort hired from Darren Morris for the day. The event sponsor and former BHRC co-ordinator had a good day out and overcame some clutch dramas in the morning stages to win class D3.
