Wales Rally GB
Classic fans were treated to plenty of airborne and sideways action from the historic entrants taking part in this year’s Wales Rally GB
This year’s Wales Rally GB may have produced a famous home winner – Elfyn Evans, joining rally legends Roger Clark, Colin McRae and Richard Burns on the trophy roster – but it also paid homage to its spectacular past.
The Rally Fest at Cholmondeley Castle featured plenty of iconic rally cars from yesteryear, both on display and blasting around the venue’s Special Stage course. The impressive lineup included a host of Group B monsters as well as Lancia Delta Integrales, Triumph TR8s and a recently-restored Peugeot 309 GTi in which Colin McRae cut his teeth back in 1988. Toyota was also present with a great display of its rallying heritage, too.
Plenty of classics also competed, both in the full round of the FIA World Championship and the shorter two-day WRGB National Rally that shadowed the main event over the weekend and provided fans with even more spectacular action. For the first time in many years, nonhomologated historic cars were allowed to enter the main four-day event – and two plucky crews entered in their venerable Ford Escort MkIIs. Steve Southall failed to finish but South African, Geoff Bell, completed all 21 special stages bringing back lots of great memories of the sideways Seventies!
The WRGB National Rally was littered with Escorts as well as several more stand-out entries. Rikki Profitt’s glorious Datsun 240Z was a crowd-pleaser, as was the Volvo ‘Amazon’ of Ken Davies. The Hereford businessman entered his Volvo to mark 50 events since Swedish driver, Tom Trana, finished third in his ‘Amazon’, but he was non-finisher, as were the two lovable Volkswagen Beetles of Bob Beales and Brian Fereday.
With so many classics on show – plus a home-grown winner and record crowds – historic rally action certainly wasn’t in short supply in Wales this year.