PUB DOWN THE WITH
Age: 54 Lives: Market Harborough Ford Escort Mk2 pilot He started on road rallies “I’ve probably been rallying for 25 years but there have been some big gaps. I started road rallying in a Ford Escort Mk2 on local events and then we bought a stage car and Baz Stevenson-Wheeler was my co-driver. We progressed from there.”
Work gets in the way “My biggest problem is work. I run an engineering business and it’s very difficult to do a full championship. We did it for a couple of seasons but work suffers. Work pays for the rallying so it has to come first and we’re away some times. We’ve been rallying a long time but we might only do one or two events a year.”
He had a great run on the Roger Albert “The more we do, the more the pace gets better. There’s no substitute for seat time. Doing an event like the Roger Albert Clark Rally was fantastic. Finishing 12th overall was a great result for me, considering I’d only done one forest event in the previous 18 months. We had a few issues with the car and could have got in the top 10 but it was fantastic and I’ll definitely do it again in 2019. That was like a season’s rallying for me in one hit.”
It is a recent car “The car before the current one I sold to Tim Pearcey. We built this one about three years ago but it’s not done that many events. Grant Shand introduced me to Chris Dewsnap and he’s been my regular co-driver ever since. We get on well.”
He likes Belgian events “I like being in the forests, although I’m probably better on asphalt because I’ve not done enough forest events. We do like going to Belgium, because you get good mileage. We stopped forest rallying for a bit due to the issues with running order but Rally 2WD is a brilliant idea to get everyone back in the forests.”
His son is involved “The plan is to do as many rallies as I can because we’ve got a very busy work year in 2019, so rallying will be slightly limited. I’ve got a wife and three children and Chris junior runs my car. We prepare it and run it and he is fully hands-on. I’ve bought him Chris Skill’s old 1600cc Escort Mk2 and he wants to get in the woods with it.”