East Anglian brothers Neil and Chris Parsons have ended a long break from rallying to contest the 2004 Armajaro MSA British Historic Rally Championship. The duo have acquired an ex-Jeff Churchill Ford Escort Mk1 and are aiming to contest the balance of the BHRC after a gentle debut on the recent Robin Hood Stages.
"It was fantastic to be back," reckoned Neil, after driving competitively for the first time since 1977. "It was a bit of a culture shock and took a bit of time to get into it, but we got quicker as the event went on," he says.
Neil, a 53 year-old estate agent from Dereham and Chris, a 51 year-old building design consultant from Swaffham first started rallying in the late 1960s. They competed on road rallies initially, Neil using his mother’s Triumph Herald Coupe until she found out that a road rally was different to a youth club treasure hunt!
Neil then bought a Mini Cooper and progressed via a number of Cooper S models to an Escort Mexico, which was used successfully on AEMC stage and road events. This was replaced by an ex-David Sutton RS1600 in late 1976, in which they tackled some British championship events in 1977 before running out of money!
Chris went on to navigate for a variety of other drivers including Peter Banham on the East African Safari whilst Neil helped David Mann prepare and run a variety of Mk2 Escorts.
They then spent the intervening years establishing successful businesses before returning to competitive motorsport on the first of the World Cup Revivals. "Doing the London-Sahara-London in a 1300cc Peugeot 106 wetted our appetite for rallying again and the search was on for a Mk1 Escort in which to relive our youth," says Neil.
An old colleague of Neil’s called Allan Beesley had a small collection of classic cars including the ex-Jeff Churchill Mk1 Escort RS1600 which he had stored for 20 years.
"Allan was eventually persuaded to sell the car but only after he had telephoned mutual friends to check on whether we would care for the car and treasure it in the same way he had!" This car, ONY 2L, was totally original and needed to be completely rebuilt in order to be rallied again, rather than be a museum piece. "The rebuild was entrusted to Grant Shand of Xtreme Motorsport in Suffolk and he has made a beautiful job of it," says Neil.
The brothers are testing at Sweet Lamb with old friend David Mann before the second round of the BHRC, the Astra Stages on 3 April. "It will be good to get back into the Welsh forests," says Neil.
