in rally job swap on home event
Castrol / Motorsport News team to use local knowledge for Rallye Sunseeker
Top road rally navigator Graham Dance will be swapping ordinance survey maps for pace notes as he pairs up with Sky Sports Tony Jardine to compete in his first ever national stage rally, the Rallye Sunseeker on 22-23 February.
Bournemouth-based Dance, who along with Jamie Turner won the prestigious 2005 Lombard Endurance Rally, accepted the challenge made by the editor of Motorsport News, Matt Burt, who will commission an article in order to contrast the differences in the two rally disciplines. Although Dance (23, from Ferndown) has competed in over 70 road rallies since 2001 this will be his first experience of national stage rallying as he makes the transition from remote public tarmac tracks to forest stages. Commenting on the test ahead of him,
Dance said, “For years it has been an ambition of mine to compete in the Rallye Sunseeker and try national stage rallying. I have watched the event and marshalled on the event many times, in fact I can see some of the stages from where I live. “I just hope I can make the transition from road rallying which is a totally different branch of the sport. We compete on tiny public mountain roads, called whites, as that’s how they appear on the detailed ordinance survey maps we navigate from in the middle of the night for anything up to 200 miles. It’s very intense and I’m continually plotting a course, never lifting my head from the maps. The other big difference is that we drive standard cars whilst stage rally cars are generally highly prepared and tuned especially for the job.”
Co-driver Dance will instead navigate Jardine from road to forest stage by a road book and learn to read the specially adapted pace notes which represent the forest tracks in abbreviated code allowing the team to go as fast as possible provided the timing of the calls are right. Dance will not only enjoy the luxury of a full back-up and service crew in the form of ProSpeed Motorsport, which is not allowed in road rallying, but the team will also have Kumho’s latest rally tyres for the event. Jardine, fresh from a successful trip to Sweden for a round of the World Rally Championship, where he finished 41st overall and second in class, has competed in the Rallye Sunseeker for the last 15 years. Jardine is also vice president of the Southern Car Club – the organisers of the rally.
The media duo of Jardine and Dance will be competing against 90 other teams for the 23rd annual Rallye Sunseeker in a Castrol backed Ford Fiesta ST150. ProSpeed Motorsport team boss Olly Marshall feels that the pairing will have to gel straight away if they are to challenge for a class win.
Marshall said, “I’m interested to see how Graham will react to the stages as he will not have experienced this sort of terrain on a road rally. The pair is being thrown together and have no time to acclimatise as a driver pairing and each others different skills. Rallye Sunseeker is a hectic event with no margin for error so it’s going to be tough on them both.” The Castrol / Motorsport News team will receive assistance from McLaren SLR development engineer Andy Beale, who has proved a real asset to the team on many national and international events.
Beale said, “This will be the third year I have supported Tony at the Rallye Sunseeker. It is a great idea to put Graham in for a national stage rally for Motorsport News and we will help him settle in to stage rallying as best we can. We all want him to succeed on what is one of the most popular and successful rallies in the national MSA Gravel Championship.” The 2008 Rallye Sunseeker will start with the ever-popular Friday night stage through Bournemouth’s winter gardens which then takes competitors along the seafront to Boscombe. Dance will need to focus to keep his concentration, particularly on this stage, as the crowds of spectators and flash lights are an easy distraction when the co-driver is not used to such spectators on road rallies.
