PAUL LAWRENCE
“Stop messing about and get back to rallying”
The Autosport Show is an annual chance to catch up with people away from the time pressure of competitive events.
This year’s edition was no different and the MSA British Historic Rally Championship stand was doing a fine trade in visitors, coffee and banter.
Historic rallying, of course, is full of great characters. It is a discipline that attracts competitors from 18 to 80 years old and from those who have only recently started competing to those who go back a long way.
For Yorkshireman Peter Smith, who dropped by to register for the 2016 BHRC, this is a second bite of the rallying cherry as he returned to the sport after more than 20 years away and he’s now one of British rallying’s most prolific competitors.
Peter, now 66, started rallying in 1972, competing on road rallies in his works car as he set about building his caravan business. He mainly concentrated on road rallies and stopped in 1985 when his son Guy started racing karts as a junior. There wasn’t enough cash to do both and so the rallying went.
Guy’s rise through the sport to professional sportscar racer and Le Mans winner with Bentley is well documented and when Guy’s career was established Peter took to cycling for his competition against the clock.
However, it was a chance invitation for Guy in 2007 that led to Peter’s rallying comeback. Guy was invited to present the North Humberside Motor Club awards in 2007 and Peter went along. The same old characters were there at the bar as they had been in 1985 and told him, in typical Yorkshire speak, to stop messing about on bicycles and get rallying again. The seed was planted.
Last year he contested more than 20 rallies and has another busy season planned for 2016. In February, he’ll do three rallies in three weeks in three cars, starting with the Cambrian in a Subaru Impreza, followed by the Red Kite in his Opel Ascona and the Riponian in the Metro 6R4. The focus of the season will be BHRC forest events in the Ascona and the BTRDA series in the Impreza or 6R4. He also plans to tackle other events like the Salamandre Rally in Belgium, but gravel remains his surface of choice.
Business success with the company that evolved into Swift Leisure allows Peter to have a collection of rally cars, including a sensational Mazda RX-7 and another Opel or two. He says he loves every one of them, but the Opel Ascona has a special place in his affections as he road rallied one of them back in the heydays of road rallying in the 1970s.
With excellent pace and some cracking results during 2015, Peter says he’ll carry on rallying as long as he can. He also quietly puts something back into the sport by supporting young drivers and helping one or two events. More power to him.
REVELLING IN HISTORIC RALLYING