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Runners up spot for Renwick and Dargan.\u00a0 Although that may sound a little disappointing, it was no shame for Barry Renwick and Steve Dargan, our current champion co-driver, to get within a minute ofthe<\/strong>\u00a0recognised Croft expert of the last decade \u2013 Kevin Proctor.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Once again our championship kicked off around the smooth, polished tarmac strips made for the circuit racers at Croft near Darlington.\u00a0 And as ever, it gives the rally community an opportunity to leave the Christmas festivities behind and watch a quality entry have a good day\u2019s sport.\u00a0 This year the heavy rain of recent days gave way on rally morning to a clear blue sky and plenty of warm, December sunshine.\u00a0 Although the intended route would still be slippy in places, any over exuberance onto the grass would be heavily punished as the quagmire offered next to no grip for any tyres trying to make some sort of forward motion.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Our stars of the show turned out to be Barry and Steve who presented their latest rally car, a Proton Millington to the crowds at Croft.\u00a0 Their only issues to talk about were a cracked front brake disc and being baulked in the darkness on SS7.\u00a0 This very quick bit of kit certainly did the business and was only 57 seconds behind the man who\u2019s won the event for 7 out of the last 8 years to finish second in the overall standings.\u00a0 Having played their Jokers on this rally, they start off the year with a good points advantage and already those with any title aspirations are having to play catch up from the off.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The 2012 champion driver Paul Swift was our next points scorer in 4th<\/sup>\u00a0overall.\u00a0 Paul was the first of many \u2018family crews\u2019 out on the rally as his wife Jessica was on the maps keeping him to the right route.\u00a0 No real complaints from Paul as usual, just a little frustrated with tyre choice mainly due to needing 13\u201d rubber.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Taking the 3rd<\/sup>\u00a0and 4th<\/sup>\u00a0placed championship points were a couple of crews squabbling over the class 1 honours – Joe Cunningham and Marc Fowler in a Vauxhall Corsa and Mat Smith, and his non registered wife Amanda, in his Proton Satria.\u00a0 Joe took a 20 seconds advantage after a good opening stage and although Mat pulled back 13 seconds over the remaining 7 stages it just wasn\u2019t enough while Joe admitted at the finish that it had been a vary hard day\u2019s sport.\u00a0 These guys were the real giant killers of the day ending up 11th<\/sup>\u00a0and 13th<\/sup>\u00a0overall and way ahead of many quicker cars.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The little red GTM Coupe of Ed Todd and Andy Brown had a\u00a0few slight offs onto the grass on stage 1 and were down in\u00a030th<\/sup>\u00a0after SS1 but with some committed driving managed to climb back up the leaderboard to 14th<\/sup>\u00a0at the end.\u00a0 And 22 seconds further back in 17th<\/sup>\u00a0overall was Alistair Hutchinson driving his \u2018other Clio\u201d.\u00a0 He was another who admitted to some offs onto the green stuff and the one on stage 4 in particular saw him losing over a minute and any chance of a top ten finish.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n There was yet another close battle taking place out on the track for the up to 1600cc class.\u00a0 It would be our Lad and Dad pairing of Barry and Michael Lindsay who came out victorious against the Constantine brothers Mark and Andrew.\u00a0 They cars were never more than a handful of seconds apart on all the stages with the little red Corsa just 1 second up at halfway.\u00a0 It took a big push through the darkness of the final 12 miles for the Peugeot 106 to make the difference by 6 seconds.\u00a0 It might have not helped that the Corsa\u2019s gearbox was giving some problem at the finish but Barry was driving flat out as ever.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Clitheroe crew of Tim Finch and Terry Martin were just behind this dicing duo at the finish rounding off the top twenty.\u00a0 A sluggish start over the first pair of stages meant their Mitsubishi Evo was hunting down Barry and Mark all day but never quite getting close enough.\u00a0 Rob Snowden had a trouble free day in his lovely orange Ford Escort Mk2 to claim 21st<\/sup>\u00a0position just ahead of Stuart Walker and Jack Morton.\u00a0 Their Skoda Fabia had been lying in 10th<\/sup>\u00a0place from the start until the final split of stage 6 when Stuart decided, as he was enjoying himself so much, that he\u2019d do one more lap !\u00a0 Even though Jack was screaming for him to turn right, Stuart took the left option and dropped over two and a half minutes.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Steven Irwin was next up in his Vauxhall Nova and delighted that his clean run netted him 3rd<\/sup>\u00a0in class 2.\u00a0 The Peugeot 106 of Liam Walling and John Askew might have ended the day a lot closer to the little Nova but clutch issues on the final test found them stuck in 3rd<\/sup>\u00a0gear at the stop line.\u00a0 Mick Thomas enlisted the services of Ken Bills for the silly seat and a clear run brought their Ford Escort Mk2 home in 30th<\/sup>\u00a0spot.\u00a0 The Spadeadam crew of Geoffrey Harkness and Caroline Lodge brought their little Corsa home 2 places further down the list.\u00a0 It was a good reliable day at Croft this time out after the double diff trouble that blighted both of the rallies run there earlier this \u2018year\u2019.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The son and father Malthouse were next as Graham was adjusting to the move from a Peugeot 205 to the Evolution 6 of Mitsubishi\u2019s very successful rally car.\u00a0 Dad agreed they\u2019d lost more than a few seconds while spinning on the grass but they both had a great day.\u00a0 Right behind and way out of place were the father and son, David and Mathew White.\u00a0 The Barnsley crew made a good start completing the opening pair of stages 7th<\/sup>\u00a0fastest before it went wrong on SS3 when the rear nearside shaft let go and they were forced to take a maximum time.\u00a0 A steady run in the afternoon moved them up from 78th<\/sup>\u00a0to 38th<\/sup>\u00a0overall and they would be another crew cursing the \u2018if only\u2019 and \u2018what ifs\u2019.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Whickham MC crew of Terry Clarke and Ronnie Roughead were next in another pretty Ford Escort Mk2, this one being a nice shiny red one.\u00a0 The boys had a good run all day and managed to keep the car still shiny at the finish too.\u00a0 Mark Casey was sitting alongside the non-registered driver Gordon Watson and their Peugeot 205 had a reliable run once they got over their slow start on the opening test.\u00a0 Next along were the husband and wife pairing from Spadeadam, Nigel and Helen Harkness in their Corsa.\u00a0 Their only problem was some banging noise distracting them on the last stage before lunch.\u00a0 Nothing seemed amiss and after a quick spanner check they were on their way to 43rd<\/sup>\u00a0overall.\u00a0 And a further 10 seconds behind the Vauxhall was yet another one of these \u2018family crews\u2019, Jimmy and Alastair Knox.\u00a0 The lads from Chester-Le-Street wheeled out their BMW again for another reliable run around.\u00a0 They\u2019d be pleased if they had a different gearbox with closer ratios to get down the straights a bit quicker, especially as Jimmy eyes weren\u2019t working as well as they used to in the darkness.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n John Nicholson and Peter Littlefield brought out their \u2018historic\u2019 version of Ford\u2019s Escort Mk2 and had a little coming together with another Ford that left a big V in his rear panel.\u00a0 Apart from that his only other time loss was with a loose steering column !\u00a0 Gary Laverick and Phil Kenny were delighted to finish in 53rd<\/sup>\u00a0position \u2013 in fact they were delighted just to finish.\u00a0 It was a confidence-building day for the driver as he comes to terms with his Ford Puma and his times were improved as the day went on as well.\u00a0 Ann Forster was sitting alongside the non-registered Neil Raven and after a trouble free day, they would bring the little 1400 Peugeot 106 home in 55th<\/sup>\u00a0place.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n They were followed by a couple of Peugeot 205s.\u00a0 First it was the Hawick pairing of Kevin Mathers \/ Craig Forsyth and then our last father and son crew of Jeff and Owen Malthouse.\u00a0 No problems to report but Jeff certainly had his heater going full blast at the end of the final test \u2013 perhaps these lads from Wooler feel the cold a bit more or the engine was running a tad on the warm side \u2026\u00a0 And our final classified finisher were the Dad and Daughter combination of Bill and Katy Bates.\u00a0 Their day got off to a bad start when they were forced to take a stage maximum after the gear linkage on their Lotus Exige failed.\u00a0 They recovered from 85th<\/sup>\u00a0after this disaster to finish in 67th<\/sup>\u00a0place.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We only had 6 retirements and the first to go was the Mitsubishi Evo6 of Geoff Simpson and Bruce Lindsay.\u00a0 They just managed 6 minutes in the opening test before the engine let go and they were forced to park up in stage; Lee Hastings \/ Julie McGuire made it into stage 3 before the gearbox of their Subaru failed; the Brother and Sister mixed crew of Andrew and Rachel Fawcett retired after SS5 with broken gear linkage;\u00a0 Michael Farmer and Kari Bates were forced out with a very noisy gearbox on the fifth stage (despite taking a maximum the stage earlier when a tca was bent); Richard Wardle was co-driving for the non-registered Jonathan Mounsey until the gearbox on their Mitsubishi Evo6 cried enough after 1 stage in the afternoon; and our final retiree was St John Dykes sitting in with another non-registered driver, Martyn Tinker, and they were gutted when the engine of the Lotus Exige expired on the penultimate stage as they were lying in 9th<\/sup>\u00a0position.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Thanks go to Ian Jackson and all his supporters from Northallerton AC for a slick run event that started and finished on time.\u00a0 And as an added feast, the lovers of 1980s rallying were treated to one the rare sights and sounds of that era as British rallying legend Malcolm Wilson, with son Matthew sitting alongside him, gave an exhibition run in the lunchtime interval between stages.\u00a0 His car was non other than the iconic flame spitting Group A Audi Quattro Coupe that was once seen on the British Rally Championship.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The\u00a0AUTOGAS 2000\u00a0<\/strong>Jack Frost Stages Rally in association\u00a0with Cartersport<\/strong>\u00a0will run on Sunday January 17th<\/sup>\u00a0and is the second round of our championship.\u00a0 This is the 17th<\/sup>\u00a0consecutive running of the event and once again it will also be based at Croft.\u00a0 Entries have been coming in very well and are already classified as oversubscribed with a reserve list already set up.\u00a0 The link for the rally is\u00a0www.darlington-motor-club.org.uk\/series_home.php?seriesid=53<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n A quick update about round 3 of the championship which is the 19th<\/sup>\u00a0Legend Fires<\/strong>\u00a0North West Stages which takes place on Friday 5th<\/sup>\u00a0and Saturday 6th<\/sup>\u00a0February.\u00a0 As is customary these days, the Regulations are released and then the organisers receive well over a 100 entries within the first day.\u00a0 A point of note is this rally\u2019s reserve list contains more names than the previous one \u2013 all a good sign that our championship is in a healthy state.\u00a0 There will be more about the rally next time and more information can be found on the event website\u00a0www.nwstages.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Runners up spot for Renwick and Dargan.\u00a0 Although that may sound a little disappointing, it was no shame for Barry Renwick and Steve Dargan, our current champion co-driver, to get within a minute ofthe\u00a0recognised Croft expert of the last decade…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[28,14,36,35,13,8,34,7,30],"post_series":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asperformance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asperformance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asperformance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asperformance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asperformance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=873"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/asperformance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":875,"href":"https:\/\/asperformance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873\/revisions\/875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asperformance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asperformance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asperformance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=873"},{"taxonomy":"post_series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asperformance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_series?post=873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}