By Paul and Sandra Heaney

A new season begins.  Has a year really passed since the Tour of Cheshire last brought us all back to life?  68 crews and cars came out to play, a few with an exciting Winter Challenge under their belts and plenty hoping they could remember the how and the why; and hopefully not repeat some of the ‘if only’ moments of the last year! The anticipated cheese, perfect weather, challenging and varied regularities and tests ranging from Barclays car park to the sublime Oulton Park rally track could make for a memorable day.

Clear skies, breakfast butties, tea, coffee and camaraderie set us up for the day.  Great to see the rally family again and found it quite hard to focus on the serious stuff!  In the line-up to go, we were brought back to reality by Reg B and Reg G being posted through the window.  A quick flick at B looked straightforward enough but we resisted the urge to do anything about it as Reg A start wasn’t far away. Reg G looked serious, so planned for coffee/ lunch.

Reg A was a delight if you like a nice long one with lots of speed changes, check points and a sneaky trip into a farm and all that being on private land means.  Great to see some familiar faces amongst the marshals too – really got us back in the groove.  A total of 9TC’s. (3) Matt Warren/Ryan Pickering (Porsche 911) started the day in the form they were to maintain to the end with just 13s followed by (12) Gareth Hockridge/Rob Henchoz (Volvo Amazon) and (19) Les Andrew/Peter Blackett (Peugeot 104) on 19s.

Despite a change of car, crew (28) Mark Goodwin/Anthony Davies (Triumph Dolomite) were the first casualties of the day retiring at TCA6 with a clutch failure. After a frustrating season in 2022 they were hoping for a more confident start to the year but as Mark said “If it wasn’t for bad luck we would have no luck at all !” let’s hope this is the end of that streak and 2023 brings reliability.

Off to Oulton Park for a couple of clockwise runs round the rally track with 4 slaloms of “boxes you do not want to hit” adding to the technicality. This session was dominated by Escorts (8) Nick Bloxham/Emily Anderson (Mexico) with 1:28 on Run 1 and then pipped by 1s on Run 2 with (5) Jason and Daniel Stone producing a 1:25.

Reg B really was straightforward in the end (the trick here, was not quite believing it was…).  Ten cars achieved a clean sheet. Just one Time Control, so a nice one to lead us calmly to coffee.

Could have done with a bit of cake or something to nibble on, we found John King rushing around to find Mars bars to keep navigator Alan Pettit happy, he obviously found some judging by the day’s results.  Coffee out gave us two treats though – Reg E (looked like quick tulips, so thought there wasn’t much we could do about that in advance) and H (descriptive so would need a bit more attention).  A short run led us to Reg C – another pre-plot with some ‘useful information’ to keep you on your toes.  4 TC’s resulted in (3) Matt Warren/Ryan Pickering managing overall 1s per control followed by (2) Leigh Powley/Brian Goff (Toyota Corolla) on 7s.

Matt Warren and Ryan Pickering showed everyone how to do it! Photo By Tony North

Reg D followed – a 4 map juggling challenge thankfully pre-plotted and aptly named “Navin & Tracy”.  Next time I think we will actually cut up the maps to make it easier…  Getting through Higher Whitley on the right road proved more of a challenge than changing speed at the 20 sign in the end and cost us a minute. With 5 TC’s (3) Matt Warren/Ryan Pickering kept up their 1s per control average followed by (6) Roger Fildes/Iain Tullie (Ford Escort) on 6s.

Roger Fildes and Iain Tullie Chasing Warren and Pickering.  Photo by Tony North.

No breather after Reg D, as we were straight on to the loose stuff in the Showground.  Test 3 gave us the only code board of the day, but also our wrong test of the day…. Splitting D through the middle rather than go round was too much to resist.  Silly! –  follow the tyre marks.  Test 4 was a repeat – lesson learnt!  (3) Matt Warren/Ryan Pickering dominated here putting in the best time in Run 1 at 1:34 and Run 2 at 1:12 but matched this time by (5) Jason  and Daniel Stone (Ford Escort). 

Straight into Reg E, starting on the Showground.  As anticipated, these were quick tulips that we just went with – great fun.  We ended up back on the public road where the route took us up a sneaky dirt track with one of the days manned secret checks.  Seeing a car reversing up ahead reinforced our decision to slot left!  5 TC’s in total and, yes, again it was (3) Matt Warren/Ryan Pickering at 12s – what a morning they had followed this time by (20) Stephen Owens/Oli Waldock (Porsche 911) at 17s, impressive for the first run out of this combined Master/Novice crew.

Lunch was very welcome and food choices were ideal – baked potatoes with a choice of lovely fillings.  Time to finish off the plotting for G!  Lunch unsurprisingly saw the top 3 as (3) Matt Warren/Ryan Pickering with a clear minute and (6) Roger Fildes/Iain Tullie just 2s ahead of (12) Gareth Hockridge/Rob Henchoz.  We left lunch with a 4-minute penalty as we were going by the start time of Reg F on the time card!  So, in a proper flap that took a while to shake off – Joker needed TCF1 !

A short run took us to Reg F – another pre-plot.  With 4 TC’s, (4) Harvey Steele/Martin Pitt (Volvo 144) took the honours with just 3s of penalties from car (3) at 4s.

After topping up petrol and navigator sweet supply a straightforward enough re-route took us to Tests 5 and 6.  Booth’s Hall was the setting for the first love it or hate it car park slalom two runs, initially the same route with a different finish. Love these as you can get your bearings first time around and have more of a chilled run leaving the driver to it (as much as you dare) second time round. Booths was shared between cars (9) Graeme Cornthwaite/Lynsey Procter (Morris Mini), (15), Dan and Nick Darkin (Mazda MX5) with a 51s first run and longer second run at  59s with  (3) Matt Warren/Ryan Pickering matching run 1. A short transit took us to Tests 7 and 8 at Barclays Radbrooke the second car park venue – probably the most challenging tests of the day as it was easy to drift onto different bits of the course.  The same crews excelled at the tight Radbrooke, Test 7 was taken by (3) Matt Warren/Ryan Pickering at 1:02 ,1s ahead of (9) Graeme Cornthwaite/Lynsey Procter who shared  Test 8 with (15), Dan and Nick Darkin at 58s.

Dan and Nick Darkin (Mazda MX5) put in a solid performance on the tests.  Photo by Tony North

Reg G had been adjusted to start at TC2 causing a little confusion with the plotting instructions, the cumulative speed tables adding an extra challenge.  The remaining 4 TC’s saw (7) Clive Baty/Henry Carr (Renault 5 Alpine) with 6s of penalties followed by 3 crews on a further second (6) Roger Fildes/Iain Tullie,(21) Philip Wood/Kelvin Phipps (Volvo P1800), and (23) Peter Higton/Guy Woodcock (MGB GT).

The final tests of the day took us on a reverse run round Oulton Park.  Again the Escorts took the result with (5) Jason and Dan Stone running a 1:27 followed by a 1:25. Followed on the first run by (15) Dan and Nick Darkin (Mazda MX5) at 1:29 and the second by  (3) Matt Warren/Ryan Pickering at 1:27.

A quick nip in and out at the Oulton tea stop and another transit section to work through the approach to the H deliarity.  Quick turns, Don’ts and Do’s hopefully clocked we set out on our final regularity of the day.  After 3 TC’s, of which only the first survived later scrutiny of how a turn instruction related to the current growth of the hedgerow, 10 crews managed a clean result.

The sun was starting to go down as we reached the Bickerton Poacher for an excellent roast dinner and opportunity to talk through the ups and downs of the day with our fellow competitors.  The final reckoning saw a top 5 of Masters  (3) Matt Warren/Ryan Pickering home with a near  2 minute margin from (6) Roger Fildes/Iain Tullie holding onto second just 4s ahead of  (2) Leigh Powley/Brian Goff up from a lunchtime 8th position following an atypical start to the day,(11) Ken and Sarah Binstead (MGB) having a day that as Sarah said “everything just worked” and (5) Jason and Daniel Stone just dropping the one spot.

Philip Wood/Kelvin Phipps (Volvo P1800) were the first Experts in 7th and first Novices (47) Nigel and Sally Woof (Alfa Giulia Sprint) in 21st their best result and some compensation for a somewhat modified Alfa rear end.

What a fantastic start to the season.  Thank you, Mike and Lorna Harrison and the team at Knutsford MC, and of course all the marshals – all stars!

Stephen Owens with Oli Waldock (Porsche 911), Leigh Powley and Brian Goff (Toyota Corolla), Ken and Sarah Binstead (MGB) Photos by Tony North.