GRADING THE BEST IN BRITAIN
It was cold, but the racing action warmed the soul at Hednesford Hills on Sunday. By
Iam officially suffering from lactose. Not an aversion to dairy products, but I fear that three of my 10 toes may not have made it back from Staffordshire. It was Arctic. Freezing weather aside, Hednesford’s Best in Britain meeting was a cracking way to end the season. There was stonking racing across all four classes, and in a way the wintery weather helped as a slippery and damp circuit added to the drama. Another plus was the fact that the grids weren’t graded, but out of a hat which made for plenty of variety in the two heats per class. Downsides? Well, and here’s a discussion point, it was delaying the presentations of the National Hot Rods and two-litre Hot Rods Best in Britain races until video evidence had been reviewed. Good or bad? Your call. On the plus side, you knew who had won, rather than thinking it was Adam Hylands in the Nationals Hot Rods and then reading in MN that it was really Carl Waller-Barrett, for example, but it delayed proceedings and left people getting grumpy and colder. Personally, I am in favour: better that than a result declared hours, days or weeks later. It did reinforce my view that hell will freeze over, as I felt it did after heat two, before I become a race official…
Oh, and National Hot Rods: 21 of you? Really? From England, Scotland and he two bits of Ireland? Twenty-one? Yeah, I know that many teams were eager to work on cars for 2023, but it wasn’t as though this was date dropped on you from
Spedeworth a week ago… come, on, for the pinnacle of non-contact oval racing, to generate the weakest grid of the four classes at the weekend wasn’t impressive.
But the racing was mega. All day, be it the Superstox field having a rare trip to Staffordshire or the Stock Rods and twolitre Hot Rods. Even at this late stage of the season there was no shortage of enthusiasm to go racing. Adam Hylands deserves a mention for the stoical way that he handled losing his National Hot Rod Best in Britain title post-race, while
John Smith was a hero in Stock Rods. Yes, he won the title from pole, but taking third in heat one from 29th was outstanding,
And while I accept it was cold, where we you all? For a day of top-drawer oval racing, more of you should have been there for a day of drama and close racing. If you think oval racing is some grubby sort of racing not to be encouraged, you need to catch yourself on. It is raw, pure and a fantastic adrenalin rush. When does 2023 start? ■
Iretired in 2019 from professional rallying after trying to get to the top. How old was I back then? I was around 28 I guess. I didn’t have the motivation to find the teams, the money, the sponsorship and so on but I got this call from Mattias Bengtsson who is the team owner of Team Nybe. I must say I was as surprised as you were that someone still had me on their radar.
From the beginning I think I was supposed to be a kind of driver coach or engineer helping out. But the more we talked the more he maybe liked my thought process and how I’m used to working within a big team. I mean, Team Nybe is a big team, they have the facilities – you’ve maybe seen them on Facebook – and they have the people. But they don’t have the experience so to speak from running a top professional team.
There are a lot of those top R5 teams in the UK but in Sweden it’s actually very few. The only professional team is probably the EKS team from Mattias Ekstrom.
So they first of all needed experience from someone to come in, but the more we talked and the further the discussions went, the idea came up of ‘why don’t you drive a car as well?’ Of course the money situation was a big talking point but when that was quickly sorted out and I was sold, I called Joakim [Sjoberg, co-driver] because that was also the main thing to get him alongside me. He had also retired, he did the last year with
Tom Kristensson in 2020 and won the JWRC with him and then he also retired from professional rallying. I called him and we both were feeling that this kind of works out.
It’s not a European championship calendar with 10-plus weeks away from home and the family. In the Swedish championship I think we’re going to do the five rounds and maybe two test rallies. And maybe we are looking into doing the Rally of Scandinavia, the ERC round that is based in Karlstad where I live. OK, that one will be a week but otherwise we’re talking maybe going from home Thursday, do the recce Friday and then do some stages the Friday night and you finish the rally on Saturday which is more handleable. You don’t have travel days in the same sense, you don’t have to be so much away from family and work. He thought that sounded nice and fun, so when he said yes, I said yes, and here we are.
Since I stopped driving I’ve still been involved in rallying. In 2020 and 2021 I was very involved with Adam Westlund who is a young talented Sweish driver who drives in the Rally4 class. So I was very involved with him, being there on most of the rallies, tests and just supporting him with the experience I’ve got. But let’s say I’ve not been missing driving, I actually haven’t even thought about it. It’s like I’ve stopped, I’m not going to try and find the money, I don’t need to prove myself and show I can still drive, it’s never been anything about that. But of course when I got the call, driving a rally car is the best thing you can do in the world so of course I was going to say yes.
Since this has been announced a lot of people have been asking about how it’s going to go, but it makes zero sense to try and focus on that now or try to worry about it now. I haven’t driven for three-and-a-half years, it’s a fact. So why should I even focus on it? If I’m P5 or P3 or whatever on the first stage, well that means I was driving too slow, so I’m going to focus on trying to drive faster. The reason why I’m too slow is kind of irrelevant in my opinion at that point.
There have been no demands from the team so to speak or pressure added on me. It’s just go out and enjoy yourself. Nobody needs to add pressure on me. I do that for myself, it comes automatically from within. I hope that maybe I can stay with the team for a couple of years and help them out in the future also as well, but for now I need to concentrate on getting ready for 2023. I must admit it feels great to be back.