DAVID EVANS
“There were 84 individual service locations. 84!”
Does an aeroplane count as a vehicle? Not sure. If it does, Toyota had 40 vehicles working on the Network Q RAC Rally 25 years ago. If not, it was just the 39. Plus an aeroplane. On Saturday November 20, Toyota took 73 rooms in Solihull’s Arden Hotel, with a further 11 elsewhere in Birmingham. The drivers and co-drivers were all in singles. And the first of the team’s five tyre vans left the hotel at 0400hrs on Sunday.
What are you reading at the moment? Whatever it is, it’s not nearly as good as the book I’ve been poring over for the last week. My read’s been a proper page-turner. It’s the Toyota Castrol World Rally Championship Team’s service schedule for the 1993 RAC Rally.
Nicky Grist loaned me the book after a chat about his efforts to win the event 25 years ago (read Nick’s own words on page 37) and it’s kept me utterly riveted ever since.
We all know the RAC was a slightly bigger geographical deal in 1993. Sunday’s opening day was a midlands tour with nine stages, landing back in Birmingham just before eight in the evening.
Monday morning was where the fun began though. A 0300hrs alarm call got the lead crew out of Britain’s second city at 0400hrs, heading west bound for Dyfnant and a run north through Wales to an overnight in Lancaster. Arrival? Just before 2100hrs. Tuesday was a lie-in with the first car on the road not out until 0630hrs, bound for Grizedale, Kielder and ultimately Gateshead in time for the Nine O’clock News. Wednesday and one final push south back to Birmingham, starting with Hamsterley at 0730hrs. Cropton, Gale Rigg and the delights of Dalby followed before champagne in Centenary Square.
The service schedule detailed precisely how Toyota kept its show – and a Juha Kankkunen/nicky Grist win – on the road. Tending to its three factory Celicas on 35 stages meant 84 individual service locations. Eighty-four!
At that point, I simply had to call the man who’d written this stunning document: George Donaldson.
“I think that was the first schedule I did for the RAC,” he said. “It took me a week, driving the whole route, knocking on people’s doors to get permission for us to come back and service on their pub car park or whatever during the event. After I’d got them signed up, I’d take a photograph of the location and then hand draw a map to show exactly how to get in.”
One location common 25 years on is the Sportsmans Arms at the top of the B4501 at the side of Brenig. Unfortunately, this year the crews will drive on by rather than pulling onto the car park for 16 minutes of service time on their way from Penmachno. And, in that 16 minutes, I can reliably inform you, each works Celica was given 25 litres of fuel, a clean, a spanner check and a set of spot lights bolted to the front.
“We had a car waiting for the rally car when it came out of every stage,” said Donaldson, “then we had a service van waiting on the road section and a tyre van before the next stage. It was a military operation. It was fantastic.”
Twenty-five years on Grist and Kankkunen’s achievement in the snow in Birmingham will be marked by official Rally Legend status at this week’s Rally GB.