DAVID EVANS
“This week it has been all about Rally GB prep”
It’s coming. It’s our turn. The World Rally Championship’s here. It’s happening. For so many months of the year, we all tune in to social media to see pictures and videos of numberless, test-liveried World Rally Cars ripping around roads in the French Alps, the north of Scandinavia or the south of Spain.
Last week, the rest of the world could go figure, last week it was Hafren and Dyfi.
I’m sorry to say I didn’t get a minute to get out and about for anybody’s test, but the chatter’s started and that’s enough to get me excited.
As you’ll read elsewhere in Motorsport News, I did find time to get to Rallyday on Saturday and it was great to share my pre-gb fever with somebody who knows much more about how exciting the build-up to Britain’s round of the world championship can be.
Seventeen years ago, Justin Dale was drafted into the Marlboro Mitsubishi Ralliart team after Alister Mcrae had fallen off his mountain bike and injured himself.
The decision to give him the drive was something of a whirlwind, with Dale thrown in at the deep end. Fortunately, he knew the Lancer WRC2 intimately, having driven it in stage mode for longer than just about any other Mitsubishi driver.
“I used to do all the shakedowns for the team,” he reminded me. “At that time, that meant putting 50 kilometres on every gearbox and they had to be 50 kilometres with the car in stage mode being driven hard. I had to go through a set number of launches, use the handbrake so many times.
“While I was doing the 50km in one car, the team would be changing the gearbox in the other and then I’d jump into that one and do that. At the time, it was a job, but obviously I was always looking for the next step. Looking back now I can see how fortunate I was to get into the car and do that many kilometres – and that was before every round of the championship.”
When it came to Wales, Dale was steady through the Cardiff superspecial before letting rip in Brechfa. Early on in the stage, he was absolutely flying. Then it came to a downhill section.
“At the time I was used to driving a Peugeot Super 1600 car,” he said, “and you really had to work those cars. Getting into the Mitsubishi, I remember early in the stage thinking: ‘This feels easy…’ We started to go downhill and I was still in the mentality of the 206 and the Lancer was much heavier than that. I braked a fraction too late and the thing got away from me and we rolled. It’s a shame, who knows what might have been. The team told me to have a go and see what I could do. Shame it didn’t last a bit longer.”
Dale was back in a Mitsubishi at Rallyday, but this time it was Guy Andersson’s ex-shinozuka Galant VR-4 which had been converted to the classic blue and white livery. Yet another classic car I’d forgotten how much I loved.