Rally Isle of Man 11th to 13th September 2014
(Report for MiniSpares) by Peter Horsburgh
This year’s event enjoyed 3 days of warm sunny weather and more importantly dry roads enabling all the crews to push even harder than usual. The event was a counter for the British Open and Historic Championships attracting a total of 105 entries for 3 days and 2 nights of closed road special stages over 166 miles of the most challenging roads anywhere in the UK.
9 were crews entered in the class for pre1967 cars (Historic) of which 5 were Minis, 4 Mk1 Cooper S’s and one Mk1 998 Cooper. For the 4th year in a row, 2 teams travelled all the way from Japan, such is their enthusiasm for this unique event. Clive King and Bob Ward were competing for BHRC championship points and on their first visit to the island. Mervyn Johnston and Wendy Blackledge in the Manx Racing Cooper S, with Bill Quine’s unique Manx Racing built engine, and Peter Horsburgh and Graham Carter in the MiniSpares Cooper S “277 BRX”, who are regular visitors to the event, Mervyn winning the Historic class outright in 2002. His visits go back to the 1980’s when the rally was a big Rothmans sponsored event in the era of Pond, Brookes , Vatanen and the legendary Jimmy Macrae, who was also entered this year in the mighty V8 Vauxhall Firenza.
The rest of our class was made up of 2 Porsche 911’s ,Dessie Nutt having won the event on no less than 6 occasions and Stephen Smith who won in 2005, one Saab V4 of Manxman Stephen Higgins and the Volvo 122S of John Moxon which gave us a close run last year before our retirement on the last day.
Thursday 11th –Day 1 (26 stage miles)
The rally started in the evening with the now traditional 2 car at a time side by side start on the Promenade in Douglas at 7pm, watched by a packed crowd of keen spectators. Our time was 5 seconds quicker than the next mini and we then all headed out of Douglas to Snaefell for the start of Stage 2, 5 miles downhill on Tholt-e-Will, famous for Ari Vatanen’s “mother of God” moment thro’the cattle grid with Terry Harryman on the “notes”. The Japanese mini of Shinobu Kitani had a coming together with some street furniture on the Prom and got back to service for major repairs to his front suspension to be ready for a restart under super rally rules the next morning.
Due to incidents on this stage and stage 4, they were both delayed then cancelled and we were left with the first daunting run over Druidale past Brandywell cottage in the dark just before midnight! We just pipped Mervyn by 2 seconds with Clive a further 10 seconds behind, starting slowly on his first taste of Manx roads at night. So the 3 minis were all still close as we returned to the grandstand well after midnight with only 2 stages completed.
Friday 12th-Day 2 (87 stage miles)
The Japanese service crew made an amazing job of getting the Kitani car ready, following its wheel and front suspension damage on Stage 1.
Ahead of us were 8 stages totalling 86miles, with 2 service halts in between of 30 and 20 minutes. We started the day 6 seconds ahead of Mervyn, with Clive a further 20 seconds adrift after a steady start, but he obviously woke up with renewed energy and was fastest over the first 4 stages – Lhoobs, Close Taggart, Ballateare and Ellanbane where we had a very close encounter with the wall on the tight hairpin at Glascoe farm. (See pic). Mervyn picked up a rear puncture on the first stage, Lhoobs, and dropped 20 and 30 seconds respectively, worst stage for this to happen as it is one of the fastest on the event with the minis averaging a shade under 60mph! It was then back to the Grandstand in Douglas for the lunchtime service where the times were:
Horsburgh: 45mins 30.4secs; King: 45mins 31.0secs; Johnston: 46mins 14.0secs. Clive had pulled back his deficit and was set to overtake into the lead of the Minis.
The first stage of the afternoon Sand Quarry, the longest in the rally at 13.24miles, was cancelled for the second time, so we headed to St.John’s for the start of SS11 Snuff the Wind, well named as we seemed to be airborne over many of the crests. Clive was quickest by 1.9 seconds moving into the mini’s lead. We set off in very determined fashion over the normally very slippy stage 11 “179”named after the spot-height at the start. The stage is 12 miles and does the loop round by Grenaby and back to Ronague twice and we were flying. 16 seconds quicker than Mervyn ,but sadly passing Clive parked by the side of the road on the second loop with a blown head gasket. He eventually made back to the long free service of 3 hours and they worked feverishly to change it, but the engine gave up completely on the next section and ended their first visit to the Isle of Man.
Mervyn was quickest on the next three shorter stages in the half light of early evening including the spectator favourite thro’ the centre of Castletown, reducing our advantage to 52 seconds.
Three stages in the dark remained, down Tholt-e-Will, a repeat of Ellanbane, and finally a challenging run over the bumpy Druidale ,the hairpin at Brandywell cottage and the steep “Sartfield” hairpin providing major landmarks and good spectator viewing on the stage. Shinobu Kitani really likes this stage in the dark as he was quicker than us by 11 and Mervyn by 26 seconds. It was after midnight when we finally returned to Douglas, leaving our service work on the car to early morning but fortunately spannerman Spen did not have any major issues to fix before the start at 09.45.
Saturday 13th –Day 3 (53 stage miles)
Conscious of our retirement last year on the first stage of day 3, down Tholt-e-Will, when leading the class, I was delighted to finish the “Marine Drive” and concede only 5 seconds to Mervyn, who was now only 68 seconds behind. We took the next 2 stages by a few seconds and Mervyn the next and so it was swapping best times all day with the gap 70 secs before the final “Classic” stage of 13 miles over Druidale and down to the TT Grandstand finish in Douglas. Mervyn loves this stage and set an incredible time 30 seconds quicker than we could manage, despite Graham keeping the pacenotes right on cue of non-stop action for over 15minutes.
Final positions: Horsburgh: 2hours 41mins 40secs; Johnston: 2hours 42mins 20secs; Yoshinao Tsuchiya (Mr Smooth) ,in the 998 Cooper with co-driver Yashuhiro Maeda :2hours 54mins 51secs, all of us 15minutes behind the class winning Porsche 911 of Stephen Smith!
A great result for the Minispares crew of “277 BRX” after last year’s disappointment and ahead the long run back to Norfolk on Sunday made bearable by the brilliant live ELO concert on Radio 2. Much delight in the Japanese camp getting both cars to the finish together for the first time, and promising to bring 4 Minis next year!

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