Dunlop/Gambia MSA British Historic Rally Championship

Report, round eight: Trackrod Historic Cup

Martin McCormack and Liam Moynihan won the rally while David Stokes and Guy Weaver won the championship title during the concluding round of the 2007 Dunlop/Gambia MSA British Historic Rally Championship, the Trackrod Historic Cup on Saturday (6 October).

The annual blast through the Yorkshire stages was an epic event, with stunning battles all through the field and the closest of all was in category two when just two seconds covered the leading three cars at the finish.The spectacle of the BHRC crews drew massive approval from the thousands of fans who watched the rally, and it was a fitting finale to a superb season for historic rallying.Category 1Dessie Nutt and Geraldine McBride (Porsche 911) went into the rally needing to win category one to clinch the overall title and came very close to doing just that. Despite a puncture on the opening stage, they led the chase of the flying Sunbeam Tiger of Patrick Watts/Elgan Davies. However, Watts was still leading as they headed into the final 14-mile stage in Givendale. Meanwhile, Stuart Rolt and Richard Pomfret were just about level with Nutt/McBride in a Team Tuthill Porsche contest.

Then, with a failing head gasket, Watts slowed mid-stage and Nutt was held up when he caught the Tiger. "Patrick pulled over as soon as he could," said Nutt, but valuable time had been lost, Rolt bagged victory and the title was lost for Nutt/McBride.

Only half a minute adrift of the Porsches was the B4 winning Lotus Cortina of Neil Calvert/Arlene Cookson after a tremendous run, chased by the similar car of Bob Bean/Malcolm Smithson. Tim Beall/Peter Dalton took B3 spoils in their Ford Cortina GT, while John Parker/Robert Harrison were clear in B1 in their wonderful Saab 96.

But the other big contest to be settled was in B2 and this was another battle resolved in a dramatic last stage. Clive King/Bob Ward and Terry Cree/Richard Shores set off at a stunning pace in their Mini Coopers and were just a second apart at the end of the opening Gale Rigg stage. But Cree/Shores than spent a minute and a half in a Cropton ditch, and the matter seem settled. Despite a failing head gasket and a broken front shock absorber, King pressed on and was within a mile of the finish of the final stage when a massive engine failure ended his rally. Despite another minute in a ditch, Cree/Shores duly took over the class win and the B2 championship title, as Graeme and Richard Godfrey took their Cooper S to second in class.Category 2A mighty battle for category two honours was also resolved on the final stage as three Porsche 911s emerged from the 14-mile Givendale stage covered by just two seconds.

With a couple of stages to run, Steven Smith/John Nichols seemed to have done enough to claim victory, but chasing hard were Sean Lockyear/Chris Wood and Andrew Haddon/Mark Crisp. Smith took only a five-second margin into that stage and admitted that he concentrated rather too much on the gap to Lockyear. "I backed off too much and nearly got caught," said Smith.However, Lockyear had an overshoot in Givendale and it was Haddon who blitzed the stage to pull back a massive 18s on Smith and grab second, just 1.7s behind the XS Racing Porsche and four-tenths of a second ahead of Lockyear. "It's been a great battle all day," said Lockyear.

Chasing the Porsches was the Escort Mk1 of Stokes and Weaver, but their focus was on the title contest. "We've been trying to win this for five years," said Stokes. "We got pretty close in 2005 and lost it by one point. I'm very proud of what we've done."

An impressive run by Chris Skill/Philip Stone kept them within 18s of Stokes, while third in C5 were Rikki Proffitt and John Madoc-Jones. The C4 title contest fell to Peter Lythell/Gill Cotton after a very attacking drive in their Porsche took them clear of Paul Drinkall/Roy Brown.

One of the star drives of the event came from Russell Morgan and Martin Kenyon as they won C3 in their Escort Mk1 by over a minute from Peter Egerton/Russ Langthorne. "We had a slow start but picked up," reckoned Morgan after they finished 13th overall in the Pinto-powered car, beating a host of more powerful cars in the process.The battle for the C2 championship crown was another settled in Yorkshire and it was John Worthing and Bill Robertson who took the title in their Escort Mk1, although victory on the event went to Ken Forster/John Stanger-Leathes. Out of the season-long battle in the long Langdale stage went Vince Bristow/Dean Mitchell when a distributor problem retarded the engine in their Escort.Category 3The rally was dominated by McCormack/Moynihan, who set a stunning pace on their debut in the Yorkshire forest, Only a detached exhaust through the final three stages hampered their mighty progress, but they underlined their superiority by being two seconds a mile faster than anyone through the 14-miles of Givendale. "Very challenging stages, but very enjoyable," said McCormack after a remarkable performance.

"We've not been able to touch this young Irishman today," said Peter Slights after taking second in category three with Joyce Champion. Slights was a minute and a half down at the finish, and only 16s up on Phil and Mick Squires, who took their Escort Mk2 to third place after one of their best BHRC outings to date. "The stages were excellent and the competition was very high," said Phil at the finish.

Less than 10 seconds covered third to fifth in category three as the Squires headed Dick Slaughter/Geoff Dearing and Charlie Taylor/Steve Bielby in a great battle, while Rob Archer/Peter Field pipped Martin Freestone/Michelle Calvert for sixth.D3 again went to Richard Lane/Frank Richer, while Richard Perry/Clive Townend won class D2 in their Talbot Sunbeam.