Rally Rattlings

Good news! The Foot & Mouth Disease crisis is over and motor sport is officially back to normal. The first round of this year’s local road rally championship has taken place, unfortunately on the same night as our most enjoyable Dinner Dance and Awards presentation. We had two crews competing, Mick Rose & Gavin Lane (MMKMC) and Jason Mortlock & Bill Smith both of whom had a pretty torrid time. Both were running in the Clubman section and suffered from very tricky navigation with Jason & Bill finishing 4th Clubman and Mick not finishing. Good to see you out and expect a better time on the Kent.

The 2002 Rally Championship:

This year we will follow the same format as last year but with only eight of each type of event and these are as follows with the hope that they’ll all run:
 
 

DATE	EVENT	LOCATION	STATUS
16/17 March	Barum	North Devon	Road
27/28 April	Funky Elephant	Basingstoke	Road
11/12 May	Swan	Windsor	Road
7/8 Sept	Bullnose	Oxford	Road
28/29 Sept	Powerush	Borough 18 MC	Road
19/20 Oct	Pheasant Plucker	Guildford	Road
9/10 Nov	Cossack	Eastwood	Road
7/8 Dec	Preston	Chelmsford	Road (ish!)
12 Mar	Barnsfield Heath	Bournmouth	MU Stage
14 Apr	Mini Tempest	Sutton & Cheam	MU Stage
19 May	Longcross	Craven	MU Stage
09 Jun	Carnival Abingdon	Farnborough/ S&C	MU Stage
27 Jul	Fat Albert	Tavern MC	MU Stage
11 Aug	Poole Car Centre	Southern CC	MU Stage
08 Sep	Abington	Middlesex County AC	MU Stage
27 Oct	Rushmoor	Sutton & Cheam	MU Stage

I’ve tried to spread the rounds over the season and to choose a few that are good but not so local to encourage you to venture out a little.  To my mind one of the important aspects of rallying is getting to see different parts of the country so I’m off to Scotland, Wales and the North this year, if you want to join me you’d be more than welcome.

Kent Rally 2002

This is now well under way but will need the help of ALL of you on the night. We have over 50 time controls to operate and Chris Scudder will be desperate for your support – please call him NOW! We expect a good entry following the upsurge in enthusiasm for road events and I intend that it will be the best rally in the calendar. Having driven some of the easier parts of the route last night (26th Jan) in the pouring rain with water flowing in rivers down some of the lanes I think we’ll have a cracking event – even if it dries up!
Don’t forget WE NEED YOU!
It was good to see Tom and Chris Powis at the Dinner Dance collecting their share of the glass and silver ware, well done chaps. Now let that be an incentive to get more of you out in the lanes or on the stages this year – you know what fun it is – never mind the cost (who needs foreign holidays and new furniture?) – you only live once. If you want to know more about starting in rallying, especially road events, then come along to Rally School on the 4th Wednesday of each month at the Bell, Kemsing, 8.15pm onwards. And you can put theory into practice on the next Weald 12-Car run by Croydon on 8th February, starting at Westerham Garage on map 187.

See you on the Kent (if not before)

Chin

The Acorn : February Edition