1st in Class for MiniSpares Team on Rally Isle of Man 2015

After a great battle and a gruelling 3 days with 185 miles of closed road Special stages, the MiniSpares supported crew of Peter Horsburgh and Graham Carter in their Mk1 Cooper S were victorious in the “Mini” class RC7. This year the organisers added a class especially for classic minis with the promise that if we got at least 10 cars to enter the winning car would get a free entry for 2016. As the event counted for 2 rounds of the “Old Stager” championship which incorporated the “Mini Cup”, I did my best with help from Clive King to persuade the other competitors to make the trip to the event.

The organisers were delighted to get so many minis and provided us with our own service area so we could help and wind each other up! The result was a record 11 minis in the RC7 Mini class and 1in RC1 for cars up to 1967 in the MSA championship. Seen here below are the Minis and drivers lined up after scrutineering in front of the TT Grandstand along with Daniel Harper’s BMW Mini.

   

Of the 11 cars entered 4 crews had come all the way from Japan to compete. Joining Manx regulars Shinobu Kitani and Yoshinao Tsuchiya were Koji Yabe and Sumida Osamu making their first visit. They are a very enthusiastic group to come to IOM to enjoy some of the best closed road stages in the UK.

As per the last 3 years we stayed in the apartment above Ian Corkills “Motorhouse” which has an eye watering collection of classic mk1,2 and 3 minis as well as classic Fords. Picture below shows our MiniSpares Cooper S getting up close and personal with Ian’s minis.

Graham Carter and I spent Wednesday completing the recce of all the stages and checking the Patterson pace notes. We have used descriptive notes in the past but found it takes too long for Graham to get the info out, so we changed to numbers 1 to 9 describing the severity of the corners with “9” equivalent to 90 degrees. This was a revelation and worked brilliantly. As an example Stage 13 “Castle-Rushen” was repeated in the same conditions at night as last year and over 5.08 miles we were quicker by 19 seconds! Apart from the Stage 1 super-special along the Douglas seafront and the night run thro’ Castletown, these were the only stages repeated from last year. Of the 180 stage miles, 46 miles were run in the dark on Thursday and Friday night, both nights finishing around midnight. 120 crews assembled for the start opposite the Villa Marina for the side by side super special, at around 7pm on Thursday with around 200 spectators lining the barriers to watch the action get under way.

Top Isle of Man mini driver Adrian Kermode (above) stalled on the hairpin and lost 22 seconds with Clive King fastest of the rest 3 seconds quicker than ourselves and Pete Ellerby. For the remainder of the rally Adrian was quickest mini on all the stages, and by SS17 had a lead over the next in class (Graham and I) of over 5 minutes! He then stopped on SS18 with burnt out coil and distributor wiring handing us the class lead with 4 stages to go. By this stage we had a lead over the next Mini, Pete Ellerby of over 8 minutes after his maximum on SS5 costing 2m 30s.

At the end of day1 with 15 wet and damp stage miles completed the class RC 7 positions were :  

1	48	Adrian Kermode	Maurice Beckett	Mini	RC7		0:21:41.3
2	80	Clive King	Anton Bird	Austin Cooper	RC7		0:23:11.9	0:01:30	0:01:30
3	87	Peter Ellerby	Paul Price	Morris Mini MK1	RC7		0:23:29.2	0:00:17	0:01:47
4	77	Peter Horsburgh	Graham Carter	Morris Mini Cooper S	RC7		0:23:30.2	0:00:01	0:01:48
5	106	Andrew O'Hanlon	Brian Hodgson	Austin Mini Cooper S	RC7		0:25:04.4	0:01:34	0:03:23
6	109	Shinobu Kitani	Hiroko Kitani	BMC Austin Mini Cooper S MK1 1275	RC7		0:25:25.0	0:00:20	0:03:43
7	117	Shane Gamble	Paul Kendrick	Morris MK1 Cooper S	RC7		0:25:51.9	0:00:26	0:04:10
8	107	Yoshinao Tsuchiya	Ritsuro Okano	BMC Morris Mini Cooper MK1	RC7	1:00	0:26:57.4	0:01:05	0:05:16
9	108	Osamu Sumida	Asako Sumida	British Leyland Mini Cooper S	RC7	1:00	0:30:09.2	0:03:11	0:08:27
10	86	Kevin William Haselden	Cat Lund	Mini Cooper Mk1	RC7		S 0:42:53.5

Clearly we had been too cautious, especially over the very bumpy SS3 Rhenab , and could not close the gap to Clive in his 8 port Cooper S over the next 8 stages until Clive’s clutch cried enough on SS13. King and Ellerby shared the fastest times behind Kermode. Friday started bright and sunny and the heavy rain around Douglas the previous night, had left a bit of standing water but this was quickly drying out. The first stage was a new one “King Edward’s Bay” 3 miles .Clive and I were only a second apart but Pete Ellerby lost it on some slippy tram tracks and got a maximum. We were determined to pull time back with the notes working well and took 12 seconds out of Clive on the 11.5 miles Dollagh stage, only for him to return the favour on Little London SS9 and take the 12 seconds back!

Action picture (above) courtesy of Manxmotorsport Photos, to see action pics of the other minis go to their web site: http://www.manxmotorsportphotos.co.uk/rally-isle-of-man-2015-day-2. At the end of the daylight stages we were 23 seconds behind and now 3rd in class, with Shonobu Kitani next 5 minutes adrift in 4th closely followed by Andrew O’Hanlon and Pete Ellerby.

We had 30 miles of stages 12 to 16 to complete in the dark on Friday night starting with the traditional run thro’ Castletown streets, but missing out the hairpin round the monument which was undergoing adjacent roadworks. Shane Gamble’s recently purchased Cooper S stopped before the action got underway. Sadly Clive King’s clutch gave out on SS15 Chibbanagh ending our most enjoyable battle and leaving us 2nd in class at the end of the night.

We arrived back at the Grandstand service area at quarter to midnight and positions were :

1	48	Adrian Kermode	Maurice Beckett	Mini	RC7		1:53:52.9
2	77	Peter Horsburgh	Graham Carter	Morris Mini Cooper S	RC7		1:59:11.4	0:05:18	0:05:18
3	87	Peter Ellerby	Paul Price	Morris Mini MK1	RC7		2:06:00.1	0:06:48	0:12:07
4	106	Andrew O'Hanlon	Brian Hodgson	Austin Mini Cooper S	RC7	2:00	2:08:03.9	0:02:01	0:14:11
5	109	Shinobu Kitani	Hiroko Kitani	BMC Austin Mini Cooper 'S' Mk1 1275	RC7		S 2:13:40.0	0:05:36	0:19:47
6	107	Yoshinao Tsuchiya	Ritsuro Okano	BMC Morris Mini Cooper Mk1	RC7	1:00	2:17:52.6	0:04:12	0:23:59
7	108	Osamu Sumida	Asako Sumida	British Leyland Mini	RC7	1:00	S 3:23:50.8	1:05:58	1:29:57

Saturday was sunny and dry again and we were in the strange position of 6 minutes behind Adrian and 6 minutes ahead of Pete Ellerby, so what strategy for the day- Go as fast as we can and enjoy the 6 remaining stages to the full ! We extended our lead over 3rd by another minute on the first 3 stages as Ellerby’s car was still not handling right after his earlier off. The final day always brings more dramas, the first being the sight of Kermode stopped on SS 18 with terminal electrical issues ending a masterclass of how to drive a Mini on the Isle of Man. So we inherited the class lead and with a large gap to the next in class we did ease off slightly. Then SS19 brought more drama with Shinobu and Hiroko Kitani out with a suspected broken idler gear in the gearbox and their fellow Japanese crew of Osamu and Asako Sumida also stopping on the stage. Then Pete Ellerby went out rolling the car on SS20 to end a very eventful rally on his return to stage rallying this year. We had a strange noise from the LH drive coupling on a tight hairpin and decided to be very slow on the tight corners on the last 2 stages .It seemed to be ok and on the final stage altho’ the car was not handling well we were flat in top over the mountain for 2 to 3miles , then within sight of the finish in Douglas with 4 miles of the longest 18 mile “Classic” stage to go the gear lever came out completely but rather than lose time to stop and fix it , I found second gear and did the last miles mostly at 7000rpm to get us thankfully over the finish line and a brilliant class win.

Final positions show the endurance aspect of 3 days of non- stop rallying with only 3 of the 11 class RC7 minis at the finish:

1	77	Peter Horsburgh	Graham Carter	Morris Mini Cooper S	RC7	Road Pens.	3:13:04.
2	106	Andrew O'Hanlon	Brian Hodgson	Austin Mini Cooper S	RC7	2:00	3:21:36.	0:08:32.	0:08:32.
3	107	Yoshinao Tsuchiya	Ritsuro Okano	BMC Morris Mini Cooper Mk1	RC7	1:00	3:33:0	0:11:32.	0:20:04.

After the prize giving at the TT Grandstand , the inevitable interview with Motors TV Special Stage Extra team, and we had to wear these silly hats. Thanks to MiniSpares for their continued support, Graham for a brilliant job in the co-driver seat, Southam Mini and Metro Centre for a brilliant engine and Spen for car prep and servicing.

Pictures by myself and Kevin Baldwin of KPB Photography. Peter Horsburgh.

Importation rules regarding vehicles are very specific: Only those over 25 years in age may be brought in to the USA without compilance to Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS).