Swan '96 Rally

Cross Border Rally 1996

Mike Biss/Cath Woodman lead the field away from Dereham Ford and into the rain swept Norfolk countryside. Mike choosing to drive his Nova and have Cath navigate this time. Following on behind came the usual string of London Counties Escorts, with only the Golf GTi of Mepham/Smith dividing them. All the LCAMC front runners were represented - all hoping to close the gap to championship leaders Mepham/Smith.

Dereham's one way system saw the first shuffling of competitors. No time penalties of course, as it was a Neutral section, but it did cause some concern when the front runners arrived out of sync at the early controls. A quick trip round Bushy Common saw Biss/Woodman score their first fail as they missed the first loop. They were not alone, and only a third of the field made it to STC3 without penalty. The first white of the night, at Hoe Lodge, saw Fiona Casey/PRAR joining first experts to falling by the way. A mis-plotted map reference saw them miss the white loop and pick up a fail. Only two cars were still clean at STC2: Paul Wright/Mark Goodman and Paul Sharp/Andy Elcomb.

The navigation claimed Sharp/Elcomb at STC8, as they missed a loop defined by visiting a trig point. This fail dropped them to 12th, apparently well out of contention. STC10 saw things shuffled again. The hand out from STC9 simply gave the reference (and approach) to STC10 and said 'Go!'. With only one item to plot carelessness abounded amongst the navigators and fourteen wrong directions were recorded at STC10. This at least allowed Mepham/Smith and Tony Michael/Paul Barrett to move into the joint lead with only a single minute's penalty. From STC10 the route looped onto Brandiston Airfield for a complicated section. Fortunately the route handout was a 1:25k map extract so the navigators were not too taxed.

More accurate navigation was needed to find STC14, and once again top crews found WAs appearing on their time cards! This point saw Michael/Barrett move into the lead as one of only three crews without a fail. second spot was taken by Taylor/Bowie with Semi-Experts Roger & Paul Ray occupying third. By TC13 both Michael/Barrett and the Rays had slipped a 'board (this time on a tricky white triangle) allowing Taylor/Bowie into the lead as the only crew with no fails. The one fail dropped Micheal/Barrett into second place equal with Mepham/Smith on 1f5m. By halfway things had taken a turn for the worse for the Rays, they slipped into OTL and were forced to cut route picking up a huge number of fails. They eventually place 13th (3rd Semi-Experts).

The standings at halfway were:

 1 Taylor/Bowie            19
 2 Mepham/Smith          1F 5
 3 Michael/Barrett       1F12
 4 Bell/Riddle           1F30
 5 Wright/Goodman        2F 2
 6 Casey/PRAR            2F 5
 7 Larner/Rodgers        3F 6
 8 Biss/Woodman          3F 8
 9 Popperwell/Coker      3F15
10 Sharp/Elcomb          3F17

The route had taken in some of the twistier Norfolk lanes in the first half, the second half was to use some of the long smooth whites. With navigators now clued up to the level of accuracy required by the route instructions fails became less common. This didn't stop Simon Larner/Gavin Rodgers picking one up at Whin Hill, but this became academic when the clutch cable failed later on. Semi-experts Dave Bell/Peter Riddle were unable to retain their fourth position o/a, but they clung on to eventually place eighth ahead of many well respected crews. Michael/Barrett almost lost everything as their exhaust fell off 300m before the final control. Navigator Paul was later spotted walking back to collect it so repairs could be affected.

Whilst there were many crews faster on the night, only Taylor/Bowie got the entire route correct and they were thus crowned the winners. On the championship side Mepham/Smith consolidate their lead in both the LCAMC and AEMC championships.

PRAR

Final Results:

Pos Class Driver/Navigator                  Car       f  m
 1  E   1 Dave Taylor/Jim Bowie             Golf        38
 2  E   2 Ian Mepham/Martin Smith           Golf      1  8
 3  E   3 Tony Michael/Paul Barrett         Escort    1 15
 4  E   4 Paul Wright/Mark Goodman          Escort    2  4
 5  E   5 Fiona Casey/PRAR                            2 12
 6  E   6 Gordon Popperwell/Graham Coker    Escort    3 15
 7  E   7 Paul Sharp/Andy Elcomb            Escort    3 22
 8  SE  1 Dave Bell/Peter Riddle            Escort    3 54
 9  E   8 Mike Biss/Cath Woodman            Nova      4 15
10  E   9 Jeremy Rodgers/Mark Fearon        Maestro   4 27
11  E  10 Ian Woodley/Damian Conway         205       6 32
12  SE  2 Rob Norrington/Chris Moore        Sunbeam  10 62
13  SE  3 Roger Ray/Paul Ray                Escort   10 72
14  SE  4 Grodon Milbank/Andrew Cartwight   Escort   11 54
15  SE  5 Dave Bushby/Roger McKenzie        Escort   16 61
16  SE  7 Mark Lodder/Matt Clark            Kadett   17 40
17  SE  6 Paul Dutton/Gerry Fordham         Escort   35 59 *
18  N   1 Rob Reynolds/Russell Briggs       Nova     21 53
19  SE  8 Rick Chapman/Maggie Chapman       309      28 35
20  SE  9 Chin/George Vost                  Manta    39 62
21  SE 10 Mike Lambert/Gavin Fielding       Avenger  43 53
22  N   3 Joachim Muller-Wende/Mark Bartram Favorit  44 25
23  N   4 Keith Pitcher/Peter Morgan        Escort   48 49