TAYLOR RISES TO THE ISLAND CHALLENGE
Peter Taylor and Jack Morton were the masters of the Isle of Man as they took victory on an incredibly challenging Chris Kelly Memorial Rally.
While a fine performance from Steve Wood and Dale Bowen (Ford Fiesta WRC) secured the Asphalt Rally Championship crown for Wood with third place, the battle for overall victory came down to the contest between Taylor’s Fiesta WRC and the R5 version of Neil Roskell and Andrew Roughead and ultimately Taylor clinched victory by just 31 seconds after two hours of intense competition.
This was a tough rally with 127 stage miles on classic closed roads over two days and 16 special stages. A challenging rally was made even tougher by horrendous weather on Friday afternoon when lashing rain and strong winds left the roads awash. The 45 crews that made it to the finish had all done incredibly well.
Wood admitted to three separate moments on the opening four-mile stage and he was not alone. One stage later, Mark Kelly and Neil Colman crashed their Skoda Fabia out of the early lead when they aquaplaned off a section of flooded road, taking down a telegraph pole in the process. Roskell explained the site of Kelly’s accident: “You came round a corner and there were the hedges and the road was flooded right across.”
ARC title contender John Stone said: “Stage two was like driving up a riverbed!” The stage was cancelled due to Kelly’s accident and the Ramsey town centre stage was cancelled before the rally due to a shortage of marshals.
Roskell narrowly led at the end of the first leg but next to go out, on Friday evening, was Irish pair Andrew Purcell and Andy Hayes who crashed their Skoda Fabia R5 out of third place on the second run of the narrow Dog Kennels stage.
The rest of the Friday evening leg went ahead as planned as the rain stopped. As the survivors arrived back at Douglas, Roskell led Taylor by 22s, most of which Taylor had lost on the Baldwins stage. Wood was third overnight, 10s up on Stone and holding the championship advantage as Stone and Laura Connell (VW Polo R5) needed to beat both Roskell and Wood to beat Wood to the title.
In the best Isle of Man style, Saturday dawned bright and dry for two loops of four stages over 75 classic stage miles. It was nip and tuck between Roskell and Taylor until Taylor grabbed back 16s on Little London and then pressed home his pace on the final loop to ease ahead of Roskell and secure an impressive win. Taylor said: “I didn’t think we’d have the pace we did. We got it right in the Baldwins today!” Roskell was quick to congratulate the winner:
“Well done to Peter; he’s done fantastically. I just couldn’t keep with that thing,” he added of Taylor’s Fiesta WRC.
Wood made sure of the ARC title by holding off Stone, who had struggled with an electrical issue that prevented the Polo reaching maximum revs. Steve Simpson/Patrick Walsh (Fiesta Rally2) had a measured run to fifth from Darren Atkinson/
Phil Sandham (Ford Escort
Mk2) who were best of the two-wheel drives with a mighty performance.
Other star drives included those of local ace George Collister in seventh in his BMW and Steve Ormond-Smith who got his Mitsubishi Lancer E9 into the top 10 despite a fifth gear spin in St Marks that cost him several minutes. Uncle and nephew Simon and Nathan Summers just missed out on the top 10 after a mighty drive in their road rally Escort Mk2 Pinto while late retirements cost Stuart Egglestone, Maxx Bradshaw and Rob Smith the top-10 finishes they deserved.
Results
Organiser: Manx Autosport When: September 30/October 1 Championships: Motorsport UK Asphalt Rally Championship, HRCR Stage Masters, Welsh Tarmacadam, ANWCC, SD34 Stages: 16 Starters: 75 1 Peter Taylor/Jack Morton (Ford Fiesta WRC) 1h55m23s; 2 Neil Roskell/Andrew Roughead (Ford Fiesta R5) +31s; 3 Steve Wood/Dale Bowen (Ford Fiesta WRC); 4 John Stone/ Laura Connell (VW Polo GTi R5); 5 Stephen Simpson/Patrick Walsh (Ford Fiesta Rally2); 6 Darren Atkinson/Phil Sandham (Ford Escort Mk2); 7 George Collister/Ian Postlethwaite (BMW 328i); 8 Richard Fishleigh/Jason McCullough (Ford Escort Mk2); 9 Carine Walker/Danii Matthews (BMW 325); 10 Steven Ormond-Smith/Dafydd Evans (Mitsubishi Lancer E9). Class winners: Lewis Gatt/Callum Yong (Ford Escort Mk2); James Nicholls/David Allman (Peugeot 205GTi); Simon Summers/ Nathan Summers (Ford Escort Mk2); Atkinson/Sandham; Ormond-Smith/Evans; William Mains/Aled Edwards (Vauxhall Nova); Danny Cowell/Will Price (Talbot Samba); Kevin Davies/Owain Davies (Ford Escort Mk2); Philip Shaw/Macklin Wilson (Vauxhall Nova); Martin Williams/Martin Allwood (Ford Escort Mk2).