STANIFORTHS WIN DELAYED ILKLEY JUBILEE
Father-and-daughter Darell and Nicky Staniforth took their Mini Cooper to overall victory despite having navigational dramas on the last regularity as the Ilkley Jubilee Historic Rally finally ran after being delayed from its September date.
The event started at Leyburn Auction Mart and provided six regularities and nine tests. The organisers made the decision to reverse the seeding to allow novices to run at the front and finish before darkness and at 0831hrs crews began to head out to start the first regularity just south of Constable Burton. A jogularity with three timings points was designed to ease crews gently into the event.
The event had a nice flow to it, with the next regularity taking in Kirkby Fleetham and Great Langton before pausing for coffee at Ellerton Lakes allowing crews to work out the instructions handed to them for the next regularity, taking in maps 93 and 92.
After working the navigators hard, the event then ran the first five tests at a farm near Bellerby. Previous Skoda works driver Les Andrew with navigator Nick Middleton was one of many crews to enjoy the tests.
After all cars had completed the tests, they returned to Leyburn Mart for the lunch halt. Regularity five was back to being plotted on a map and took crews on the back roads
East of Leyburn before the route returned to some of the morning’s tests.
This quick blast woke everyone up enough for them to tackle regularity six, the longest of the day. This was an unknown to all crews and would need to be plotted on the move using a London Map. Pre-plotted points needed to be avoided or visited in a certain order to get the time controls and the all-important code boards. Many crews struggled here as the rally slipped into darkness and caused a slight shake up in the results.
As the final event of the HRCR Motorsport News Clubmans Rally Championship season, many crews were keen to finish on a high. Chris Haygarth and Colin Martin took first novice award finishing in an impressive seventh overall in their
Toyota MR2.
Graeme Cornthwaite and Lynsey Procter took the first expert award in their Mini, finishing sixth overall after losing time on the final regularity.
The Masters award was taken by Jon Dunning and Henry Carr in their Ford Escort RS2000, having repaired the clutch after it failed on Rally of the Tests earlier in the month.
Results
Organiser: Ilkley District Motor Club When: November 20 Championships: MN HRCR Clubmans Starters: 46
1 Darell Staniforth/Nicky Staniforth (Mini
Cooper S) 2m42s; 2 John Dunning/Henry Carr (Ford Escort RS2000) +8s; 3 Leigh Powley/Brian Goff (Toyota Corolla); 4 Steve Head/Mark Appleton (Ford Escort); 5 Nick Pullan/Ian Canavan (Peugeot 205GTi); 6 Graeme Cornthwaite/Lynsey Procter (Morris Mini); 7 Chris Haygarth/ Colin Martin (Toyota MR2); 8 Roger Fildes/ Martin Phaff (Ford Escort); 9 Clive Baty/’Crow’ (Renault 5 Alpine); 10 Tim Tordoff/Ian Frazer (Peugeot 205GTi). Class winners: Cornthwaite/Procter; Haygarth/Martin.