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The Summer Trial was based in Shrewsbury this year with an entry of 85 cars. Scrutineering and noise checks opening at 08:30 am on the Friday morning meant that many crews arrived the day before.There were 3 local crews taking part Pete Dalton & Mick Smith in Pete’s Lotus Cortina, Colin Jebson & Derek Brader in Colin’s Volvo and Mike Rands& Keith Storer in Mike’s Mexico.
Competition started on Friday afternoon with a run of 72 miles including 4 regularities and 3 tests, 2 of these on Rednal Kart track and the third on what was left of an old airfield perimeter road . Pete & Mick overshooting a 90 right between 2 cones.
Mike & Keith taking an early lead amongst our trio by the end of the day lying 13th o/all on 38 secs, Pete & Mick a close second in 18th with 43 secs penalties, Colin & Derek on their 1st event together encountering a few problems dropping 2m 34 secs in 51st place.
Saturday saw the crews leaving in reverse seeding for 165 mls including 7 regularities and a reversal of the airfield test. Mike & Keith losing 20 secs when after a slight overshoot the car stalled and wouldn’t fire up again, sadly Colin & Derek continued their troubled run breaking an alternator mount in the process. Results at end of day 2 showed Pete & Mick in 15th with 2m penalties, Mike & Keith in 24 on 2m 24s and Colin & Derek in 52nd on 6m 31s. Both our leading crews being affected by delays due to farm vehicles particularly Mike & Keith when the MGB running a minute in front of them came reversing round the route being followed by 2 enormous tractors forcing both crews back to the previous control.
Sunday dawned overcast as crews set out on the final 82m consisting of 4 regularities and 3 tests. Colin had taken emergency repairs wedging a relay between the alternator and engine body, sadly this went missing on route but they carried on to finish the event in 48th place and gained a class award. Mick hadn’t used his joker yet as he kept telling everyone that is until a wrong slot on the last regularity cost them dearly finishing in 19th with 3m 43s penalties they also got a class and team award. Joining in the celebration was Mike and Keith who came equal 20th 6 seconds behind also getting a class award.
A great weekend was had by all and a good haul of trophies to show for it.
Keith
The Three Castles Classic Rally
3rd to 6th June 2025 by Mike Rands
This rally is based in Llandudno North Wales and is for Classic and Heritage (pre-war cars) and this year ran from the 3rd to the 6th June offering 500 miles of tests, regularity and transport sections. I have entered this rally before always with George Haxby driving. This year some 50+ years after last rallying together I persuaded Mike Bayliss to have a go in his recently acquired 1966 Ford Anglia, not the 1200cc version but fitted with a 1500GT engine and an ex stage rally car.
We sailed through scrutineering on the Tuesday morning and then prepared our Road Books before attempting the Pro-log in the afternoon. A single regularity of over 20 miles and a test up the drive to Grwych Castle (as used for I’m a Celebrity during Covid) . Fortunately the Pro-log was only a practice run out and not counting for the main event as a Nav error saw us missing several controls and coming in last.
Day1 of the main event started with 3 tests and 3 regularities in the morning, the regularities went very well with only 5 seconds lost but on the last test we had our only penalty of the event for not stopping astride at Bodrhyddan Castle... 10seconds dropped. Another 3 regs and a new test at Hartsheath in the afternoon all went smoothly with minimum lost time. Our only issue was an annoying buzz(sounded like a circular saw) as the manifold vibrated on the engine cross member under load.
Day2 started with a very long test (more like a stage) on Lleweni airfield which included 2 splits and Mike had the Anglia really motoring on this one with a time of 3:09. Two tests at Glan-y-Gors (the longest FIA kart track in the UK) followed with no drama. There were 8 Regularity sections included in the 180 mile route and a final test in the afternoon at the well known(in Wales) Ranges Motorsport centre. We had to utilise our Joker on a regularity which used the tricky triangle junction north of Nebo. I had been on this before and although we managed to find the control ok we exited the wrong way and ended up wrong slotting before recovering, but with only a 10 second penalty after the Joker was applied. We had a slight scare when en route to this test when the Anglia’s clutch stopped working. Fortunately a local garage managed to find us some clutch fluid to top up the reservoir and after a few pumps on the clutch pedal by Mike all was well again. When back at Rally HQ where we were staying the results on the Sportity App showed we were lying 24th O/all ,1st in class D1and in the leading Team (Harlech). The pressure was on for the final day.
Day3 kicked off with a short regularity section from the top of the Great Orme and started only 1 mile from Llandudno promenade. This took us down some interesting hairpin bends onto the “scenic route road” round the Orme cliff . This is a private road and included 4 time controls during the 3.3 miles so losing time was expected, we dropped 13 seconds – not bad at all! More tests followed at the A55 underpass and Vaynol Hall before a run via the centre of Caenarfon to start Reg2 on the seafront, 2 x zeros here kept us just ahead of car49 chasing us for the class win. Two tests were held at the tiny Parc Glasfryn kart track before lunch at the Portmerion Hotel (the venue for filming The Prisoner). After 3 more regs we arrived back at the Great Orme and the finale of 3 very quick tests round the daunting cliff road, we were quick on the first 2 but lost a few seconds when the engine cut out on a stop astride on the final test.
The results showed us finishing 23rd overall out of 70 starters, 1st in Class and in the winning team. A class index calculation was also made by the organisers and on that basis we were 8th overall. A great result for us and some nice trophies too. The winners of the rally by 2 seconds were Graham Walker and Sean Toohey in a 1962 Lotus Elan from Mark Godfrey and Ryan Pickering in a Ford Escort.
Three Castles 2025
Class & Team Winners
Mike Bayliss & Mike Rands
1966 Ford anglia 1500
HERO Challenge 2 - Silverstone Area - 31st May
Members Colin Jebson and Keith Storer tackled the 2nd HERO Challenge of the year. Based around the Silverstone area offering a mix of Tests and Regularities. They usedthe ex Chris Pearson 1966 Volvo Amazon 122s which had seen some major LSD, Gearbox and exhaust repairs following the previous Hero Challenge event.
Thing went wrong from the second junction of the event when a wrong slot resulted in a time loss which used up their Joker and resulted in further loss. Colin recalls the look of the Wedding Car driver meeting a Volvo coming towards him on the long drive of the local stately home.
They were lucky when Colin went the wrong side of a cone on one of the fast Bicester Motion tests. Lucky because it was so dusty the marshals never saw the mistake and no penalty was given :-)
Things started to click better between the pair in the afternoon but morning time penalties kept them well down the results. However the crew were still talking and smiling
with a car that was still running well at the end., Result!
Gremlin Historic Rally - 10th May 2025
Club Members Graham Richardson & Keith Storer took on the daunting Epynt Military Ranges and challenging Welsh roads on this HRCR Road Rally Championship round.The event attracted a top class entry.
Keiths Report below :-
5:28 Saturday evening, it’s the start of Graham Richardson and my adventure on the Brecon MC’s Gremlin Rally 2025 starting from Talgarth Rugby Club.
2 regularities to complete a 10ml and secondly a 20ml run both based on map features with regularity 1 including all roads, fairly straightforward with Reg 1 having 8 speed changes and Reg 2 having 13. The evening finishing with a meal at the Llangorse activity centre.
Sunday morning in glorious sunshine( yes in Wales )battle commenced in earnest from the Old Railway Garden Centre in Three Cocks, the day would consist of 10 tests and 7 regularities based on and around the Epynt Ranges.
Reg. 3 started just 1.6 mls from the start on narrow Welsh lanes and finished 36mls later deep in the ranges, this was followed by 3 very fast flowing tests before coffee.
Reg 4 was somewhat unknown as only the 1st 4.6 mls of the 12ml route was preplot but this caused much chatter amongst the navigators as route instructions were basically any bodies guess. Use at least 2.3 mls of whites before entering forest at castle grid after 4.6mls. Pass through 2 not as map triangles and at least 2 SP’s. Eventually a route was decided upon and we all lined up, on starting we were given the route from the cattle grid which was tulip diagrams of not on map gravel forest roads.
Fabulous fun! 2 more tests brought us to lunch at Toyota in Builth Wells where we got the route for Reg 5.
Reg 5, 13 speed changes over 26mls back into the forest and ranges again based on passing through map features. This was closely followed by 3 tests before the next Reg.
There was a slight delay on one of the test as the army wanted to move some equipment through the test at least this allowed the dust to settle!
Reg 6 was 19ml run starting with a herringbone on whites of 10 junctions before continuing into the forests again on tulips. 2 more tests before the last Reg back to the finish at the garden centre.
Reg 7 was a 13 ml run with 8 speed changes based on up and down gradients with a couple of LWRT’s ( long way round triangle ) and a black spot.
The day concluded with a carvery and awards presentation. This was probably one of the best rallies that I have ever competed on both for organisation, choice of route and camararedie of both competitors and organisers. Well done !
Keith Storer
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