HAVING A BLAST ON THE LOOSE
How two racing experts took to the stages on the R.A.C. RALLY. by Paul Lawrence
Last November, historic racers David Gathercole and Martyn Donn left their comfort zone far behind them to tackle the Roger Albert Clark Rally.
Gathercole and Donn teamed up for a series of one-day events through the year as a lead-in to tackling the Roger Albert Clark in Gathercole’s Ford Escort Mk1.
He’s one of the leading engine builders in historic racing, so the supply of a two-litre BDA unit was never going to be a problem.
“I started racing in karts when I was 16 so I’ve been racing for the better part of 40 years, although I had a fairly big gap in the middle of it,” says Gathercole. “When I was a kid I was totally fascinated by watching the RAC Rally highlights on the TV. I followed the rally when I was an apprentice. It was always my dream to go rallying but it was just too expensive and racing was more accessible.”
When he was 21 years old, David and a friend bought a Triumph Dolomite Sprint, which they were going to prepare for rallying but it was a stillborn project because by the time they’d got all the rot and rust out of the car, they’d run out of money. “We looked at twin-cam Escorts and it was just more than we could afford. So I started racing an MG Midget and somehow we managed it.”
In more recent times, Gathercole has successfully raced a range of historic single-seaters and sports-racing cars. Donn, meanwhile, raced in Formula Vee before switching to historics where he won the 2016 Derek Bell Trophy in a Formula Atlantic Lola T760. However, he did some rallying in his younger days and jumped at the chance to co-drive for Gathercole.
“I’d done a few rallies before it, fairly unsuccessfully,” says Gathercole of preparations for the four-day event. “But we had no concept of how punishing the stages would be and how challenging the whole rally would be. It was total madness!”
Gathercole drove the Escort for a week before the rally in the freezing cold to try and iron out all the final little issues and quickly realised they needed a heater in it as they faced four long days covering gravel stages in Wales, the Scottish borders and Kielder forest.
“We’d done the Woodpecker a few weeks earlier and decided we needed to buy a better intercom so we could hear each other,” says Gathercole. “To this day, I don’t know if that was actually beneficial or not!”
They had a shock when they arrived at the start of the rally. “When we got to Shelsley Walsh we realised it was bigger than we had anticipated. The last time I’d been to Shelsley I was 13. I think Martyn got a bit frustrated at my inability to drive and my fearless approach to the forest stages, but we dug it out of the dyke every time,” recalls Gathercole.
“We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and the night stages were just incredible. I’ve done the Le Mans Classic at night but going through the forest, and passing cars that are upside down, was something else.”
The first leg in Wales went well enough but the drama kicked in early on the second day on the southern end of Kielder. They found a sizeable ditch and had another Escort and a Saab for company. Fortunately, with some help from the sweeper car they got out and got going again and the rest of the day went quite well with some good stage times.
“On one stage we’d been off and we came round a corner and there was a BMW with its front wheels in a ditch. We got our rope out and gave them a tug,” explains the driver. “That was the attitude that everyone seemed to have towards each other. Just keep going and finish at all costs.
“Amazingly Sunday in Scotland was pretty much a trouble-free day and we survived the ice later on, which wasn’t skill, it was just luck. On Monday in the final leg in Kielder the first stage went swimmingly well, so we probably gained just a tad too much confidence. We went into the 20-mile second stage and we were about halfway through when we rolled and went over twice.”
The car looked pretty sorry and they were rather dejected as they thought that was it and they were out of the rally. The car was sat on a tree stump so the rear wheels weren’t on the ground.
Gathercole explains: “We found some long logs and used them as a lever. We just squeezed between two tree stumps to get the car back onto the road. So we were back in.
“We tank-taped all the windows back in so it looked something like, but not very like, an Escort and we were looking through a damaged windscreen. On the second run through the long 20-mile stage we got to the same corner and Martyn warned me but I had it up on two wheels again. There were some expletives over the intercom.
“We were just about to go into the last stage and there was a poor guy in a Escort Mk2 and his differential had broken. We were now just driving for a finish and two miles into the stage we started to pick up a misfire. The high-pressure fuel pump had packed up and we stopped on stage and had to wait for the pump to cool down so we could restart the engine and we limped on at about 2500rpm. But we got it to the finish.”
Despite all the dramas and the mental and physical challenges, they are already planning a return for the next edition in November 2019.
“We can’t wait to go back and do it again. You can’t really put it into words,” smiles Gathercole. “I just love the atmosphere around the rally world. The camaraderie, the laughing and joking: There were never any harsh words said, which was totally refreshing. If I had the opportunity to go and do it again in the next 10 minutes, I’d go and do it.”
It is clear that, for someone who has done an awful lot of racing, crossing the tracks to rallying has been an amazing experience.
“It’s probably a bit late for a mid-life crisis and it is something that will live with you forever,” he says. “A lifetime experience: the most amazing, rewarding and gruelling thing I’ve ever done on four wheels.” ■