Ok, a wee bit of history and info about my mk2 Escort rally car.....
I have owned the car since 1985 when it was a bog standard Mk 2 1.6 litre RS Mexico apart from a rear cage and a pair of the usual Cibie super Oscar spotlights and big bore exhaust for that street racer look. About this time I was regularly spectating on road rallies in my area and thought "I can do that" and as they say "the rest is history" when in 1987 I took the plunge and entered my first road rally along with my good friend Iain Douglas on the maps which if my memory serves me correct was the Coalville Car Club road rally in Leicestershire, all I can remember is we got totally lost somewhere and ended up going home. Also about this time the engine was swapped for a standard 2.0 litre RS2000 engine.
Auto windscreens road rally in Derbyshire somewhere.....
We continued to do more road rallies and actually managed to finish some! With the best result being 3rd in Class and 15th O/A on a Welsh Event (The 1990 Markates Briedden I think) and the car slowly got upgraded as time went on i.e. billies, lsd, quick rack, 5 speed box, sumpguard etc.
Splashing through Tissington Ford
And round the popular "Dunn Cows" hairpin, which is a light tighter than it looks in the pic, and only a few people can manage to get round it in one go, which I did of course :-)
In 1990 the car was converted to make it legal for use in both road and stage rallies i.e. full cage, firewalls, extinguishers etc.
I plucked up the courage and entered my first single venue stage event, which was the DAT stages at Manby in October '90 along with Steve Hallmark (who incidentally is a paramedic which may have come in usefull) standing in for Iain, as he had other commitments that weekend. The car was still in road rally spec with full interior trim still fitted along with second hand road tyres and single carb. We were lying 8th O/A when one tyre blew on the stage and we lost a lot of time, however we managed to crawl back to 13th O/A and 3rd in class, a great result for my first event.
First stage event at Manby
It’s easy this stage rally lark a pot first time out I thought, you cant get lost, just follow the arrows lol!
I continued to enter in quite a few more road and stage events with mixed success, the car still in the road rally spec.
Little did I know that the car was to become a bottomless money pit as the car slowly evolved and I chucked even more money at it. Road rallies were eventually knocked on the head as I was having more success on the stages and the interior was binned along with a change of engine for a more powerful unit complete with twin carbs, change of rear axle to astronger baby atlas as I was continually breaking the English half shafts (which resulted in many non-finishes) plastic side windows turreted rear shocks and a straight cut 5 speed gear box.
We completed in this spec and had a few ‘minor incidents’ for a few years winning my class on quite a few events and winning class 3 in the East Midlands Championship for single venues in '94 & '95, my best result was 5th overall 1st in class at Twyford Wood in 1996.
Wilbarston
Stafford County Showground
Swinderby
Twyford Wood, on the way to 5th o/a 1st 2wd
However in early 1997 I decided single venues were getting a bit boring and needed a new challenge so we decided to enter the world of multi-venues. How wrong I was when we entered our first multi-venue (Tour of Lincs) and my world was turned upside down literally! It was all going well whilst we were in the top ten, 8th overall, when we rounded a sharp 90 corner on one of the farm track stages only to find some gravel, slide wide and end up upside down in a water filled dyke. "Oh dear!" (Or worse to that effect) I thought as I clambered out, & I clearly remember Iain’s comment was "I didn’t like that vinyl roof anyway!" (But I'm sure there is a cheaper and easier way to remove one!). Although the roll was slow, it was enough to damage the roof skin as we landed on top of the only wooden post in the dyke!, the rear window, fibreglass boot lid, door skin and the front wing were also damaged. The car was righted and pulled out of the dyke by some friendly spectators, but although the car was still drivable (just) we were OTL and decided to call it a day and go and drown our sorrows. A photo even appeared of us in Accident Blackspot in the old RallySport magazine. This roll was the second one in two years on this event for my navigator Iain, as on the previous years event he ended upside down with Mike Gilman in his Talbot Sunbeam, Jinxed or what!
Scanned from Rallysport magazine
Anyway this put us out of action until the back end of the year whilst I repaired the car, when I completed in the '97 Flookburgh Challenge which consisted of four rallies held at Flookburgh airfield in Cumbria, in which I managed to finish 2nd overall and 1st in class 3 and also equalled my best result on one event of 5th o/a first two wheel drive without damaging the car! I then managed to finish a multi-venue and competed in a few more single-venues until the rallying had to take a back seat as funds were tight due to me moving house (bigger garage!) and getting married, then the arrival of children has delayed the rebuild and me from getting back out onto the stages,
Manby
Flookburgh
During this "enforced" break & whilst the car was off the road I took the oppertunity to tidy her up, however this was a big mistake as I have since thrown even more money at it as it progressed to 5-linking, better engine, carbon dash, speed sensitive electronic power steering, better brakes, better suespension, new seats, alloy fuel tank, plus lots more little mods and repairs including new paint as time allowed.
I have since competed in a few more rallies and also a few old school track day events since the rebuild....
Wilbarston earlier this year
Rockingham Stages in December
So what’s next? Well I hopefully more stage rallies mixed with a few track day outings as funds permit.
Also I would love to take my car over to Ireland to compete on some Irish tarmac events, just need to save some pennies up....
keep it sideways..........
Cheers
Steve
I have owned the car since 1985 when it was a bog standard Mk 2 1.6 litre RS Mexico apart from a rear cage and a pair of the usual Cibie super Oscar spotlights and big bore exhaust for that street racer look. About this time I was regularly spectating on road rallies in my area and thought "I can do that" and as they say "the rest is history" when in 1987 I took the plunge and entered my first road rally along with my good friend Iain Douglas on the maps which if my memory serves me correct was the Coalville Car Club road rally in Leicestershire, all I can remember is we got totally lost somewhere and ended up going home. Also about this time the engine was swapped for a standard 2.0 litre RS2000 engine.
Auto windscreens road rally in Derbyshire somewhere.....
We continued to do more road rallies and actually managed to finish some! With the best result being 3rd in Class and 15th O/A on a Welsh Event (The 1990 Markates Briedden I think) and the car slowly got upgraded as time went on i.e. billies, lsd, quick rack, 5 speed box, sumpguard etc.
Splashing through Tissington Ford
And round the popular "Dunn Cows" hairpin, which is a light tighter than it looks in the pic, and only a few people can manage to get round it in one go, which I did of course :-)
In 1990 the car was converted to make it legal for use in both road and stage rallies i.e. full cage, firewalls, extinguishers etc.
I plucked up the courage and entered my first single venue stage event, which was the DAT stages at Manby in October '90 along with Steve Hallmark (who incidentally is a paramedic which may have come in usefull) standing in for Iain, as he had other commitments that weekend. The car was still in road rally spec with full interior trim still fitted along with second hand road tyres and single carb. We were lying 8th O/A when one tyre blew on the stage and we lost a lot of time, however we managed to crawl back to 13th O/A and 3rd in class, a great result for my first event.
First stage event at Manby
It’s easy this stage rally lark a pot first time out I thought, you cant get lost, just follow the arrows lol!
I continued to enter in quite a few more road and stage events with mixed success, the car still in the road rally spec.
Little did I know that the car was to become a bottomless money pit as the car slowly evolved and I chucked even more money at it. Road rallies were eventually knocked on the head as I was having more success on the stages and the interior was binned along with a change of engine for a more powerful unit complete with twin carbs, change of rear axle to astronger baby atlas as I was continually breaking the English half shafts (which resulted in many non-finishes) plastic side windows turreted rear shocks and a straight cut 5 speed gear box.
We completed in this spec and had a few ‘minor incidents’ for a few years winning my class on quite a few events and winning class 3 in the East Midlands Championship for single venues in '94 & '95, my best result was 5th overall 1st in class at Twyford Wood in 1996.
Wilbarston
Stafford County Showground
Swinderby
Twyford Wood, on the way to 5th o/a 1st 2wd
However in early 1997 I decided single venues were getting a bit boring and needed a new challenge so we decided to enter the world of multi-venues. How wrong I was when we entered our first multi-venue (Tour of Lincs) and my world was turned upside down literally! It was all going well whilst we were in the top ten, 8th overall, when we rounded a sharp 90 corner on one of the farm track stages only to find some gravel, slide wide and end up upside down in a water filled dyke. "Oh dear!" (Or worse to that effect) I thought as I clambered out, & I clearly remember Iain’s comment was "I didn’t like that vinyl roof anyway!" (But I'm sure there is a cheaper and easier way to remove one!). Although the roll was slow, it was enough to damage the roof skin as we landed on top of the only wooden post in the dyke!, the rear window, fibreglass boot lid, door skin and the front wing were also damaged. The car was righted and pulled out of the dyke by some friendly spectators, but although the car was still drivable (just) we were OTL and decided to call it a day and go and drown our sorrows. A photo even appeared of us in Accident Blackspot in the old RallySport magazine. This roll was the second one in two years on this event for my navigator Iain, as on the previous years event he ended upside down with Mike Gilman in his Talbot Sunbeam, Jinxed or what!
Scanned from Rallysport magazine
Anyway this put us out of action until the back end of the year whilst I repaired the car, when I completed in the '97 Flookburgh Challenge which consisted of four rallies held at Flookburgh airfield in Cumbria, in which I managed to finish 2nd overall and 1st in class 3 and also equalled my best result on one event of 5th o/a first two wheel drive without damaging the car! I then managed to finish a multi-venue and competed in a few more single-venues until the rallying had to take a back seat as funds were tight due to me moving house (bigger garage!) and getting married, then the arrival of children has delayed the rebuild and me from getting back out onto the stages,
Manby
Flookburgh
During this "enforced" break & whilst the car was off the road I took the oppertunity to tidy her up, however this was a big mistake as I have since thrown even more money at it as it progressed to 5-linking, better engine, carbon dash, speed sensitive electronic power steering, better brakes, better suespension, new seats, alloy fuel tank, plus lots more little mods and repairs including new paint as time allowed.
I have since competed in a few more rallies and also a few old school track day events since the rebuild....
Wilbarston earlier this year
Rockingham Stages in December
So what’s next? Well I hopefully more stage rallies mixed with a few track day outings as funds permit.
Also I would love to take my car over to Ireland to compete on some Irish tarmac events, just need to save some pennies up....
keep it sideways..........
Cheers
Steve
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