Rain soaked RallyDay wets appetite for Rally GB
Rain Soaked RallyDay wets appetite
for Rally GB
Wednesday 26th
September 2018
The annual festival of all things rallying has shown once again
why rallying is as popular as ever with a stacked event at the south west circuit.
Castle Combe has now undoubtedly become the home of RallyDay and as it has done
for many years now fills a gap in our rallying needs before the show comes to
the forests of Wales in a week and a half. Though this year’s event may not
have had the star power of events gone by and the weather didn’t exactly play
along we were still given a memorable day enjoyed by anyone from a
casual family day trip, to the most hardcore rally fan.
This year’s driver line up was co-headlined by 1988 and 1989
World Rally Champion Italian, Miki Biasion who was reunited in a special moment
with his Lancia Delta Intergrale as he took off and started proceedings in the feature
stage. This was touching moment as everybody celebrated the 30th Anniversary of his maiden championship win alongside 30 years of the famed Lancia
Delta Intergrale. His aforementioned Intergrale was one of many of these Lancia’s
at the event celebrating its birthday.
The other co-headliner was somewhat of a RallyDay regular now and the most recent Wales Rally GB winner Welshman Elfyn Evans, the 29-year-old continues to rise to a new level every year he comes to the event with his most recent triumph being the winning the 2017 British rally - a title he wants to retain in a week and a half. Unlike previous years there was no current works team with a car, meaning crowds were unable to see the state-of-the-art machinery of the current cars, which was a shame but this year it did seem to be much more of a celebration of the past rather than the present line up of stars and cars.
The other co-headliner was somewhat of a RallyDay regular now and the most recent Wales Rally GB winner Welshman Elfyn Evans, the 29-year-old continues to rise to a new level every year he comes to the event with his most recent triumph being the winning the 2017 British rally - a title he wants to retain in a week and a half. Unlike previous years there was no current works team with a car, meaning crowds were unable to see the state-of-the-art machinery of the current cars, which was a shame but this year it did seem to be much more of a celebration of the past rather than the present line up of stars and cars.
A big celebration taking place at the week-end was 50 years
of the legendary Ford Escort. A great collection of Escorts from over the years
were on display and participated in on-track events, some of the headline
Escorts from the day were; the first ever MK1 Twin Cam Escort that the late
great Roger Clark drove, other rallying Escorts including the
1970 Ford works team car and my personal favorite Hannu Mikkola’s Eaton Yale
MK2 Escort. This was a truly great celebration of Fords most significant road
and Rally cars and quite possibly the most Famous Rally car of all time. A great story.
As I previously stated there wasn’t the international star
power of years gone by but there was as always a brilliant representation of
the British Rally scene with drivers such as Jimmy McRae a 5-time British Rally
Champion, Russel Brookes a household name from 70’s and 80’s British Rallying,
David Bogie a man who once held the British and Scottish Rally Championship at
the same time, Ryan Champion who has and still continues to compete in events
all over the world, Tom Cave who is a promising young British driver who is
fighting to get a seat at a works team. Then we have the unmistakable voices of
people like Howard Davies a British Rallying Icon who has been there and done
that when it comes to rallying with a knowledge of the sport unrivalled, this got
him named as the recipient of the spirit of RallyDay award, a truly deserved
accolade. More Rally personalities such as Nicky Grist famously Colin McRae’s co-driver
and an incredible personality in his own right, Stuart Turner another great
rallying mind to have graced us at rally day this year.
A great selling point to RallyDay is its accessibility which
has always been brilliant as a fan, as most of the drivers are essentially fans
too they don’t mind mingling with people to talk about there passion of
Rallying. If you want to meet your favorite drivers up close there are great
opportunities at the interviews presented by Howard Davies on the stage (this
year under cover) followed by autograph sessions which all the stars get involved, which is brilliant for the drivers and spectators alike. All in all,
RallyDay just keeps getting better and with the announcement that Petter
Solberg would like to return for next year’s event I would strongly recommend that
you keep a note of this date in your diary for 2019.
Comments
Post a Comment