MUD, SWEAT AND GEARS
Rod Chapman and John Taylor, the rallycross originals, chart the TV sport’s rise and slide
Reliving the glory days of rallycross
Four saloonatics. Three and a bit hectic laps. Go! Have Murray Walker’s pants been more afire? Multi-surface rallycross at Kent’s Lydden Hill was the automotive gripple-grapple of my childhood. Emerging from the mud of the winter before the Summer of Love, it brought much-needed ‘colour’ to our flaky Radio Rentals between power cuts, and before we emerged into the sunlit motorsporting uplands of Messrs Sheene, (R) Clark and Hunt; and, so Dad says, Brut 33, Cossack (hairspray) and sex for breakfast.
For a kid crazy about Corgi, Matchbox and Scalextric, rallycross was all about idiot avant Minis and mad, barking Escorts, sliding and darting, arcing and intersecting – plus impish Imps; sideways Landcrabs; a Lotus Europa covered by green, brush-clean Velvetex; and, as daft as it sounds, DAFS.
That’s how I remember it, at least. What I’d been watching, in fact, was a sport grown big too quickly having been conceived and wooed – to fill gaps in weather-hit winter schedules – and in short order marginalised by TV. Its was a bumpy ride in Britain, but Europe had been gripped by the fast-and-loose stylings of the best of enemies in cars prepared 30 miles apart in Kent.
It was Rod Chapman who’d set National Hunt jockey John Taylor on a new sporting path. The latter was flat-out – literally – recovering from seven spinal fractures and a bust pelvis after a fall at Cheltenham when his interest was piqued by the televised single-car rallysprint that replaced the 1967 RAC Rally, cancelled because of the foot-and-mouth epidemic.
“I’d been told never to get kicked in the back again – but you’re protected in a car seat and that’s why I thought of rallycross,” explains Inverness-born Taylor. “When finally I came out of hospital, in the winter of 1968/’69, I attended Lydden Hill and met Rod there. He persuaded me to buy a Volvo 123GT from a guy called Alan Taylor. I paid £300 for it and had its engine tuned by Weslake because they were local to me in Rye.
“I’d learned in an Austin Seven Ruby on our farm and had been an enthusiastic road driver of a variety of sports cars. Being a farmer, I understood about traction. Plus [competition] driving is like riding in terms of balance, lines and positioning – albeit a lot less dangerous! That Volvo was very torquey and a good old tool on its 15in wheels and Semperit tyres. I won lots in autocross and was competitive in rallycross when the mud was flying.”
This led to the 29-year-old being invited – along with established rally aces Tonys Fall and Pond, Chris Sclater and Will Sparrow et al – by Ford competition boss Stuart Turner to try for a Ferguson Research 4WD Capri for 1970/’71.
Works drivers in complicated works cars sponsored by national newspapers were indicative of the rapid growth of rallycross since its birth at Lydden on 4 February 1967. Exactly two years later, Roger Clark’s 3000GT was storming around a frozen Croft for the benefit of ITV’S World of Sport cameras. Meanwhile, Brian Culcheth’s works 4WD Triumph – a 1300 shell with Le Mans Spitfire engine and a 2000’s independent rear suspension, gearbox and final drive allied to a Pony utility vehicle’s transfer
box – was making sleigh in the snowshine of Lydden for the BBC’S Grandstand.
Millions were tuning in by 1970 and British Leyland chairman Lord Stokes, no fan of motorsport for its own sake, wanted a slice of the traction. Special Tuning’s response, conceived and built in nine days, was based on an experimental all-terrain Moke declined by the British Army and so reduced to towing MGBS from Abingdon’s production line. With rear diff bolted solidly to Clubman shell, subframe replaced by bespoke mounts for radius arms, and an eight-port head on four Amals generating 124bhp from 1293cc, the 4WD Mini won on its debut in 1971. In the first heat of the final round at Lydden, the works-assisted Brian Chatfield beat the Capris, tuned by Weslake to give 230bhp on Lucas injection with ‘Can-am’ stacks. It stripped its front diff in the second.
Taylor’s test in a Staffordshire field, aboard RHD and LHD World Cup Rally Escort ‘mules’, went well and the following Monday he signed a contract – “two paragraphs on a sheet of A5” – on the promise of a 4WD Capri and the premise of using a Mexico in the meantime.
“I was fourth in the pecking order behind Roger, his [younger] brother Stan, and Rod,” Taylor says. “I tested the Capri a lot at Boreham and told chief mechanic Mick Jones that the only way to get it around the corners was to aim at the scenery and bounce it round. That suited Rod because he was so spectacular. He was happy as long as he could plant his right foot. I thought there was a little more science to it. But he was very good value and the crowds loved him.”
Chapman, from Tunbridge Wells, had caught Ford’s eye when he won the 1967 Player’s No 6 Autocross finale at Silverstone in a borrowed Cortina after his Volvo-engined version expired. He would become the first to make his name in rallycross alone, driving a semi-works Escort Twin Cam and works Triumph 2500 Londonsydney test car, plus the four-wheel-drive Capri – “An animal. Took the pleasure right out of it” – that he continued to campaign when Ford had withdrawn officially after 1970/’71.
Taylor – ‘Mr Rallycross’ – was the next: “I was happy to stick with my Escort, especially because
‘Jan De Rooy showboated during his third heat and held up Rod Chapman and Franz Wurz; the stewards ruled it fair game’
the Capris were penalised, held back at the starts. Chris Steele of Formula Ford fame did my pushrod engine and we concentrated on torque for traction. Also, I started talking to Dunlop about using softer compounds rather than hard crosscountry rubber. That became the A2 ‘forest racer’ – the rally tyre to have.
“Ford gave me a car and all the bits – Peter Spackman helped me prepare it at home [in Ulcombe] – as well as tyres and [Castrol] fluids. But I had to find my own sponsor. I met [RS dealer] David Haynes, an ex-racer who was Stirling Moss’ best friend, through an old schoolmate, and we did a deal based on performance and television appearances. David was a remarkable man to whom I owe so much.”
By 1971, however, television was already looking elsewhere for its quick sporting fixes: the BBC, which had muscled in on Lydden Hill, and ITV, forced to concentrate on Croft and Cadwell Park, throttled back. “The mud was interesting for a while,” says Taylor. “But it covered everything and didn’t make for a great spectacle and confused the watching viewers.”
Fortunately, he and Chapman had taken preemptive action with competitors who preferred a summer’s dust in their filters to wintery water in their electrics. “We’d got to know various overseas organisers who wanted English drivers to come over so that the locals could get their international licences,” says Chapman. “John and I were the most loyal and hardly missed a meeting. But we’d get others, guys such as ‘Jumping’ Jeff Williamson, a fantastic Mini driver, and Ron Douglas, to join us on occasion.”
Taylor: “We took rallycross in its infancy across Europe; Rod’s haulage contacts helped a lot. Holland was first, then Belgium, Germany, Austria and Scandinavia. We went as far as Hungary. I owned a very long-wheelbase Ford D-series truck and could get two cars on its platform and another on a trailer. I’d set off and Rod would follow later in some fast car or other and meet me at the venue.” Fledgling venues, such as Germany’s Estering in Buxtehude and the purpose-built Eurocircuit in Valkenswaard, The Netherlands, that flourish still.
The locals proved fast learners, and they cracked the 4WD code. The Capri was a noseheavy understeerer – despite a 37:63 torque split – and neither the Triumph nor Mini featured a centre diff, relying on shale and/or slush for axles to slip relative to one another. “Everything changed after we pissed all over Jan de Rooy’s DAF at Cadwell,” says Chapman. “‘You’ve done it now!’ he told me. He spent the journey home planning how to convert his car to 4WD and came back a month later to return the favour.”
The Eindhoven-based haulier had, with input from DAF engineer Wim Hendricks, ‘simply’ turned the drivetrain through 90º, placing it amidships across his 555 Coupé ex-group 6 rally car. The burly ex-scrambler, crash helmet wedged in a roof bulge, sat to the left of a thrashing 128bhp Renault Gordini 1300 held at maximum revs by a threshing Variomatic transmission, above which the valiant pilot perched. This was the competition version of DAF’S CVT – titanium pulleys and cone clutches with chunkier rubber drive belts – that had met with variable success in Formula 3. Thus re-orientated and connected by separate propshafts to BMW 2002
LSDS fore and aft, it now acted as a 50:50 centre diff and shiftless gearbox in one. Much of the car’s front end – Macpherson struts, driveshafts, hubs – was from a Ford Taunus 12M, but its leafsprung de Dion rear was pure prototype. Despite 4WD time penalties – the FWD belt could be slipped off if these were deemed too severe – the rugged de Rooy and toughnut brother Harry became hard to beat when a 175bhp BRM Phase 4 Ford Twin Cam was fitted.
The next iteration of rallycross DAF would, at Taylor’s recommendation, feature a Terry Hoyle-tuned Ford BDA unit. This was also mounted transversely, albeit under the bonnet, thus allowing the driver to sit lower, to the right of the in-cabin transmission. It would also be forced to run RWD in the inaugural European championship of 1973. This seven-round series – unrecognised by the FIA – was an organisers’ coalition united behind two of Lydden’s movers: Southend-on-sea’s go-ahead Thames Estuary Automobile Club and Embassy cigarettes.
Taylor had by then graduated to an RS1600 with an 1800cc iron-block BDA; and Chapman joined him in a sister car sponsored by local Ford dealer Stormont Engineering. They were to be faced by the lightweight works Saab 96 V4s of Stig Blomqvist and Per Eklund, and the Porsche-engined VW Beetle of Austrian Franz Wurz, as well as the de Rooys.
Taylor won the opener in Austria, settling for second behind Chapman in Germany the following May weekend. Wurz beat Taylor in Belgium in June, the latter responding with wins in The Netherlands in September and Sweden in October. Between times Wurz won again, at Lydden. When dropped scores (the best four from the first six rounds) were factored in, all was to play for in the double-points finale at Lydden. The consistent Taylor held a five-point advantage over Wurz, six ahead of Chapman; Jan de Rooy and Blomqvist were also in the mix.
Although John Foden’s televised Rallypoint at Warwickshire’s Ragley Hall and later Long Marston aerodrome had introduced a first-pastthe-post system, with knockout heats, semis and a final, the European series stuck with the original rallycross method whereby drivers raced against the clock, the fastest of three attempts in heats each featuring three different rivals dictating their overall position. Though this could lead to gamesmanship, there was rather less hipand-shoulder than we would become used to.
Taylor, whose September Lydden meeting had been blighted by his colliding with a marshal in the absence of red flags, set the early mark, only for Chapman to slice 1.3 secs from it despite – or perhaps because of – his spinning across the finish line. Slipped engine timing and gear selection bothers respectively halted them second time around, while Wurz had his fuel pump pack up. De Rooy seized this moment to move ahead by 1.2 secs and the fast-starting Dutchman then showboated during his third heat and held up Chapman and Wurz. Stewards ruled it fair game.
“Without that, I could have been champion,” says Chapman. “But you win some, you lose some. We were all friends, Jan was very good to John and me. We often used his place as a base/ stopover; diesel was much cheaper in Holland. And I was best man at his wedding. Both!”
Taylor was unable to improve on his earlier
time and awry steering led to him almost rolling as he scattered marker barrels at the chicane – for which some thought he might be disqualified. Fifth place, however, was sufficient for him to tie with Chapman on points and take the title – plus the £750 prize – due to three victories to Chapman’s one. This would remain the high point of British rallycross until Will Gollop won the same title of 1992 in a biturbo MG Metro 6R4.
Freshly built works Escorts and alloy-block BDAS didn’t bring Taylor and Chapman the hoped-for benefits in ’74; the former’s rear axle tube kept turning in its casing and the latter rolled his car into a ball. Taylor would finish third overall in 1975 and his European victory at Lydden in November 1976 – Ford was funnelling him towards rallying – would be the last for a British driver until Mark Rennison’s at Sweden’s Knutstorp in 1988 in a Ford RS200.
“I’d started to lose interest,” says Taylor. “It had become too much like stock-car racing. You could have a real ding-dong with the likes of Stig because he had lots of finesse and was very sporting. But all those Dutch in their Porsches! Plus the Europeans had bigger budgets.” A bad landing in Grizedale on his way to sixth place in the 1979 RAC was the final straw, and Taylor’s good work for Ford thereafter – until 1996 – would be done beyond the cockpit.
Chapman, following a disappointing spell in a Blydenstein-prepped Vauxhall Firenza – “They built a good race car for Gerry Marshall, but couldn’t cope with the fatigue that rallycross exerts” – and success in lightweight 911s, retired after 1978 because of family commitments, plus a request from Ford that he contest the Parisdakar in a truck. That programme closed when testing highlighted transmission shortcomings. When truck racing took hold, Chapman would become its inaugural European champion – in a Ford sponsored by Stormont – in 1985, winning again two years later. “A second helping!” he says. “It took off like rallycross and was just as much fun – only with more money.”
And less mud.
Thanks to Shirley Gibson of Retro Rallycross for her help with this story: www.retrorallycross.com
“You could have a real ding-dong with the likes of Stig Blomqvist because he had lots of finesse and was very sporting”