TVR TUSCAN RACER GOES RALLYING A BOWLER
After 18 years away from competition, former TVR Tuscan and GT racer Lee Caroline is contesting this year’s Bowler Defender Challenge.
A title winner in Tuscans, Caroline was tempted back into the sport by his friend and now co-driver Syd Phillimore. They have taken a couple of third places so far and will now contest the penultimate round on the Cambrian Rally (October 28-29).
Caroline explained how it happened: “Blame Syd! He rang me up one night and said he’d bought a Bowler rally car and he didn’t fancy driving, so would I drive for him? So I said, we’ll have a go and here we are.”
To date, they have tackled three of the five events run in the arrive and drive series.
Now 42 years old, Caroline has not raced since 2004. He said: “After I did TVR Tuscans and GT racing, I did some Britcar with Kevin Clarke in a BMW M3. Then I retired from racing and concentrated on my son Jamie’s racing career.
“Syd doesn’t really know about navigating so I’m really driving what I see,” said Caroline. “Sometimes left is right, so we’re lucky to be alive. But it’s been interesting. And it’s been a laugh. It’s massively different, rallying is nothing like racing on Tarmac. We’ve done no testing and we’re really just doing it for a laugh.
“If we were taking it seriously we’d probably go testing and maybe have a navigator who knew left and right. Before the Trackrod Rally I’d never done rally at night. The last time I competed in the dark was at Sebring in a GT car!”