Nightwatchman Rally 1997

Resolution Road Rally 1998

The Association of Central Southern Motor Clubs have retained the Inter Association Trophy for another year. Their 'B' team proved to be the only one of the seventeen teams to complete the 150 mile route without picking up a single fail.

The individual event was decided by an earliest entry tie decider, with three crews bringing in clean sheets. Steve & Richard Pashley had posted their entry first and were declared the winners!

53 cars lined up at the start, representing eleven of the sixteen regional associations. Notable absentees were ASWMC, normally strong contenders, but otherwise teams had travelled from the furthest corners of the UK. The ANICC (next year's hosts) had sent a team, as had WAMC. As the Beaver was also the last round of a number of the regional championships, the local associations were well represented, with EMAMC providing four teams. Seeding the teams threw up a few anomalies, with Guy Robinson/Charles Wheeldon (EMAMC A) seeded 19, and ACSMC high fliers Chris Pratt/Nick Ardern (ACSMC A) fairing even worse at 35 one ahead of Tim Tordoff/Ian Frazer (EMAMC B).

With EMAMC style navigation (nothing harder than tulips and straight herringbones), the talk at the start was how a result was to be obtained. In the past the weather has lended a helping hand with tales of snow and ice doing the rounds. The night however was warm and cloudy, but with no rain. As an aid to getting a result the organisers had chosen to use 1998 style codeboards (7 letters and numbers). The Cossack earlier in the year had used them to good effect, and the organisers hoped to achieve the same. EMAMC navigation meant that their locations had to be disclosed in the navigation, but there's not much point in looking out for one after the third all-yellow junction if you're on entirely the wrong route!

The route dived straight out into competitive sections, heading towards the Humber and Spurn Head. Despite the close proximity of the North Sea, there was no ice to make the sections treacherous. All too quickly crews started arriving at petrol. With only a few minutes to add up provisional results were quickly issued, and the subject of codeboards reared it's ugly head. A number of fancied crews discovered that small errors in copying down the details were very costly, Colin Rodger/Sue Speller (ASEMC) going home in a huff having got a fail.

Also caught out a petrol were Doug Kingsley/PRAR. They managed to book in three minutes early at the MTC and get three fails for the pleasure. PRAR's only excuse was that he had trusted the marshal to write the correct time on the card - he will not be making this mistake again! The standard of marshaling was very high, with the route looping round the start it was easy for crews to do three or even four controls.

Heading back inland, the route didn't have much to test the competitors. There were the few local oddities thrown in to test the more traveled crews, but most of the event was down to maintaining an adequate pace and getting the codeboards down correctly.

At the finish the results were greeted by two factions: the 'well we wrote down six of the seven characters correctly' faction (who were generally disappointed) and the 'well we wrote them all down correctly' faction (who proved to be successful in the end). There was quite a debate, but quite simply the rule was that you had to write down all the characters correctly to avoid a fail. For 1998 it would appear that organisers will have to be careful when choosing their characters, ie avoid Is and 1s,7s and Zs etc.

When all was said and done, and thirty minutes had elapsed, it came to pass that the ACSMC (B) team were the only team to get all the codeboards correct. They were duly crowned the Inter-Association champions. In the classes Terry Martin/Simon Bentley won class B (Semi-Experts) and Paul Hutchings/Andy Ledger (ANCC C) won class C (Novices).

PRAR

Inter Association

Beaver Rally

 1 A 1 Steve Pashley/Richard Pashley   Nova          EMAMC (A) Clean
 2 A 2 Ian Sutherland/Kevin Bardon     Escort        ANCC  (C) Clean
 3 A 3 Tim Tordoff/Ian Frazer          Nova          EMAMC (B) Clean
 4 A 4 Paul Stringer/Andrew Hughes     Fiesta XR2    ANWMC         1
 5 A 5 Terrence Pressdee/Iain Tullie   Chevette      ANCC  (A)     2
 6 A 6 Richard Mclachlan/Eddie Clough  Escort        AEMC          3
 7 A 7 David Williams/Richard Booth    Clio          ANEMMC(A)     3
 8 A 8 Derek Mclean/David Crooke       Maestro       ESACC         4
 9 A 9 Paul Wright/Mark Goodman        Escort        AEMC          4
10 A10 Chris Pratt/Nick Ardern         Peugeot  205  ACSMC (A)     4
11 A11 Trevor Joel/Stefan Arndt        Sunbeam       ACSMC (B)     4
12 A12 Alyson Acreman/Byron Jones      Peugeot  205  WAMC          6
13 A13 John Dimbleby/Trevor Faulkner   Mini          ANEMMC(B)     6
14 A14 Bob Marshall/Mark Wagstaff      Corsa         ANEMMC(B)     7
15 A15 David Brown/Lee Burgess         Citroen  BX   EMAMC (D)     9
16 A16 Jason Turner/Alastair Crosbey   Fiesta        ANCC  (B)     9
17 B 1 Terry Martin/Simon Bentley      Peugeot  309               10
18 A17 David Cameron/Mark Hodgeson     Isuzu Trooper              13
19 A18 Chris Moore/Andrew Coshan       Audi 80       ACSMC (B)    14
20 A19 Chin/Rob Liddiard               Manta         ASEMC        19
21 A20 Guy Roemmele/Lockhart Horsburgh Rover SDI     ESACC        24
22 A21 Ian Harrison/Rob Watson         Escort XR3i   ACSMC (B)    25
23 A22 Roger Ashmead/Alex Hoult        205           ANEMMC(A)  1  0
24 A23 Martin Self/Alan Ogden          Corolla       EMAMC (A)  1  0
25 A24 Gareth Jones/Iestyn Ap Daffyd   Corolla       WAMC       1  0
26 A25 Nigel Wright/David Campbell     Fiesta        EMAMC (C)  1  1
27 A26 Guy Robinson/Charlie Wheeldon   Nova          EMAMC (A)  1  3
28 A27 Tony Michael/Paul Barrett       Sierra Estate AEMC       1  5
29 A28 Gav Smith/Mike Ogram            Lada Samara   ANCC  (A)  1  5
30 B 2 Mark Whitford/Steve Porter      Corolla       ANEMMC(A)  1  5
31 A29 Matthew Fowle/John Upham        Mazda 323     ACSMC (A)  1  6
32 A30 Richard Rigg/Nick Patrick       Nissan Sunny  ANCC  (C)  1  8
33 A31 Anne Johnson/David Coggins      Nova          ANCC  (B)  1 11
34 A32 Nik Kershaw/Jez Pole            Astra         EMAMC (C)  1 16
35 A33 Gary Sheridan/Richard Hicks     Nova          ANICC      1 18
36 B 3 Andrew Goodier/Roger Hage       Golf          EMAMC (D)  1 20
37 A34 Tim Mckie/Kathryn Millington    205           ANICC      1 22
38 A35 Nick Hedges/Glyn Williams       Audi 80       ASEMC      1 26
39 A36 John Henderson/Lloyd Cochrane   Sunbeam       ANICC      1 29
40 A37 Catl Hawkins/Steve Coupland     Nova          ANCC  (A)  2  3
41 A38 Mark Turner/Tim Cork            309           EMAMC (B)  2  4
42 A39 Toby Adam/Pat Gadsby            Escort        WAMC       2  6
43 A40 Dave Twilton/Mike Petch         Astra         ANCC  (B)  3  4
44 C 1 Paul Hutchings/Andy Ledger      Nova          ANCC  (C)  3 41
45 A41 Violet-Ann Aitken/Stuart Waite  Escort        ESACC      4 13
46 A42 Doug Kingsley/PRAR              Nova          ACSMC (A)  5 11
47 C 2 Ian Gower/Gary Giles            205           ANWMC     13 61
48 B 4 Liz Young/Doreen Bardon         Civic                   29 44
49 C 3 Benjamin Corbett/Marcus Watmore Sunbeam       ANWMC     35 22
50 C 4 Adrian Green/Paul Hudson Fiesta XR2           EMAMC (D) 22 20