After a major engine rebuild carried out by MED in Leicester designed to give a stronger bottom end with a fully specified crankshaft and their special high torque camshaft (STR 930) to make the car more driveable.

The S rods were smoothed, polished and whole assembly balanced giving a very usable power band from 3000 to 7000, but capable of revving to 8000 safely. We have stayed with our very reliable full race cylinder head built by Neil Slark at SRE, and to achieve maximum reliability are running twin 1.5” SU’s for which give good torque and smooth tick over. We have experimented with a works style split Webber set up, but we found it had a tendency to gas up and not re-start easily, not ideal if you stall on a test or special stage.

Road Rallies in 2005

1. Leukaemia Rally 20th June

2. 31st Targa Rusticana 3rd September

1. Leukaemia Rally

With the cancellation of the East Anglian Classic we decided to use the Leukaemia Rally as a shakedown for our main event the Manx Historic Stage Rally. We choose the Leukaemia because of its reputation of combining regularity sections with timed to the second special tests of which there were 21! We were seeded at No 2 following Peter Joy's 2004 championship winning Lotus Elite. The event is based in South Wales.
Our test times were disappointing, generally in the top 10, but not in the top 3 where we should be. This was principally due to the handling .Between power on and off the car would disconcertingly moving sideways by 3 feet when I lifted - not helpful on tight tests, most of which were quite high speed. I could not trace the fault except worrying about torque from the LSD (limited slip differential) we were trying out. Post event checks discovered loose steering arm to hub bolts, something we have never had before but easy to fix, this I am sure was also affected by the diff - needless to say the diff was changed back to a Minispares cross pin diff for the Manx.

Despite our test times we were doing well on the regularities and were leading by 3 minutes going into the second last test when the clutch failed, we tried everything to adjust it into action but after 30 minutes effort we could only struggle to the finish using the starter to get us going with the car in gear.
After the event we found the clutch lever arm had sheared - a 5 minute job to change if you have a spare but we didn't. So we had no alternative but to cut out the last two tests. This cost us 18 minutes penalties and dropped us from 1st to 17th ! I recommend you all invest in a new arm from Minispares for your classic before it let's you down !

The good news was we found out the problems before the Manx, so we changed the diff, and of course fixed the steering arms.

2. 31st Targa Rusticana

Following the damage done to the rear suspension on the Manx we removed all the rear end suspension and the fuel tanks and welded in new plates where the top of the shocker bolts through wheel arch.

I always enter the Targa with my original driver Alistair Bell who has navigated for me on this event for the last 10 years, our best result being 3rd overall in 2002. The car was driving so well and very tractable I was confident we would do well in the tests especially the Welsh Showground at the rally start and finish in Builth Wells in Mid Wales.(see pic below)

The entry list was very strong with a full complement of 80 cars, perhaps because of the rumours that this may be the last running of the Targa! Out of this entry there were no less than 13 Minis, with 5 red/white cars running as numbers 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 with us at 16.(see pic below)
Ahead of us were 12 tests and 7 challenging regularity sections , with a few of the organiser's navigation tricks to catch out the unwary or inexperienced , just as they did with us last year.
We started well with fastest on the first showground test , the car being very driveable following its excellent performance on the Manx . Our teamwork in the car was working well on the regularity sections with Alistair keeping us on the right route with only the occasional wrong slot , and me keeping is on the ever changing time schedule , the organisers changing the average speed up to 6 times on a section . We had a very relaxed stop at the lunch halt where we were well up in the top ten , and no mechanical problems to deal with .(see pic below)
We continued our good pace on the tests with a total of 5 top times out of the 12 tests , giving us the “Fastest on Tests “ award at the finish , just beating the very quick RS 2000 Escort of Mike and Liz Jordan by 8 seconds. We were also doing well on the regularities but as luck would have we drove past a code board which was cleverly placed in the middle of the Sweet Lamb complex where I was using all my concentration to find our way round the myriad of marker cones. This cost us 300 penalties and a certain win , finishing in 8th place , 237 points behind the winners . However it was without doubt one of the best events we have competed on and I hope the organisers come back in 2007.

The top Minis finished in the following order :

7th ....Dick Appleton / Dave Harris ......... Morris Cooper S .... 1275 .... CYD 820 C
8th ....Peter Horsburgh /Alistair Bell ....... Austin Cooper S ..... 1275 .... 277 BRX
17th ..Dave Foster / Bernard Northmore Mini Cooper S ........ 1275 .... EHY 268 C
24th ..Pam Butterworth/ Shon Gosling .... Morris Mini ............ 1293 .... 33 LMA
33rd .Malcolm and Elaine Oxborrow ....... Austin Mini Clubman GT .... FRF 327 K
36th ..Isaac and Sarah Zarmati .............. Mini Cooper S ........ 1310 .... OLA 386 L
43rd ..Bob and Jeanne Taylor ................. Austin Mini .......... 1293 .... FSE 21 F