One hundred and fifty crews made up of 93 modern and 54 historic cars assembled in sunny conditions at 8.00 on Sunday 2nd June in Oostrozebeke, Belgium. The route comprised of 4 loops of 3 stages totalling 82km of closed public road special stages.

Starting first car on the road was the MiniSpares team of Peter Horsburgh with fellow Kings Lynn Motor Club member David Smalley in the hot seat on his first visit to Belgium and first time co driving on a pacenote special stage event !

In compliance with the FIA rules, the car has had new Cobra seats and Schroth seat belts fitted as the existing ones were now out of date having a competition life of 5 years. A few teething problems with the split Weber set up meant the car was running in less powerful mode with 1 ½ inch SU’s .We are also trying out the new for this year Quaife ATB limited slip differential.

Two Red/White Belgian minis were running at 2 and 3 with car three crew on their first rally outing . Car 2 were running in a friend’s car so trying to drive sensibly!

We started the first run through SS1” Hulste” with no dramas and a time of 3mins 23secs , 30 seconds quicker than the other minis. By stage 2 “De Ginste” the clutch was starting to go and by the end of the stage we had no clutch at all but were still 20 secs quicker than the 2 following minis. We needed a push to get away from the end of the stage and struggled to the start of SS3 “Wielsbeke”.I adjusted the clutch and we got just enough but struggled off the line in 2nd gear. Again we needed pushing but somehow drove the 7 km to the service in the centre of Oostrozebeke hoping the traffic lights on the way would not go red.

A suspect slave cylinder was diagnosed and Spencer made short work of fitting a new spare and still had time to tighten a few suspension nuts that had come loose on the stages, check all fluids , and re-torque the wheel nuts within our 40 minute service time.

We set out on loop 2 ready to push with full clutch action now available. On “Hulste” we were 5 secs quicker, but an overshoot on “De Ginste” and an overshoot and a stall on “ Wielsbeke” meant we dropped 25 seconds on our previous runs when we had no clutch !

Back at service for the 40 minute “lunch” halt, the area was mobbed with hundreds of spectators with the Mini attracting most interest from fellow enthusiasts, all going away with the latest Minispares catalogue such that my stock is now gone. The Belgians love their motorsport and rallying in particular and this event despite being in a 20 mile radius of the town attracted an amazing crowd, including on the stages where we entertained with our junction overshoots in the morning.

Loops 3 and 4 had no dramas for us with steady improvement in times especially “Wieslsbeke” our last run 20 seconds quicker than our first. Unfortunately car 2 Austin Cooper S of Gino Dupont and Ari Vanparys suffered our clutch slave cylinder problem and had no spare so retired at the end of loop 3. The young rookies Mathieu Castelein and Maxime Tanghe finished their first ever rally and will no doubt get quicker as they get more experience.

So our first FIRC round ended with a 1st in class and 26th overall out of the 54 Historics and maximum points in the FIRC challenge. The next round will have Les Allfrey (Last year’s Historic winner) and Keith Pettit previous winner who blew up his engine preparing for the last round but will be out on 15th June for the “Wervik Rally”. We need to get Webers sorted by then and I will be joined by Derek Webb in the hot seat for the rest of the season using his wealth of experience on Belgian roads.

David Smalley enjoyed his first trip to Belgium in which we managed a visit to the Menem gate ceremony in Ieper on Friday evening. The buglers have played the last post every night since 1947 at 8pm.

David also “endured” his first bottle of “Trappiste” very strong Belgian beer bringing home the glass and a case or 2 of less powerful Jupiler, and still got all the pacenotes right. Who says we go for the rallying !!