I suppose my story begins when I was growing up in the1960’s. My brother Geoffrey is a few years older than me, and after passing his diving test he bought a Mini van as his first car (346 WNU Willow Green). I used to love it when he would take me out for a ride; I guess that I was an easily impressed twelve year old. Although Geoff was training to be a Radio and TV engineer, he liked to carry out his own car repairs, and I would look on, trying to help wherever I could. His next vehicle was a Mini Traveller (HWY 932C Tartan Red). At this time I started getting more and more interested in cars, and it was also time to think about leaving school. What would I do for a career? My Dad had always wanted me to learn a trade, like my brother, and I decided I wanted to be a Motor mechanic. I went with my Father, to see the owner of our local garage, AC HALL Ltd, Tadcaster, a BMC and Vauxhall dealer, and saw Mr Hudson, a man that would help shape my future, It was agreed that on leaving school in April 1970 at the tender age of 15 I would begin a 5yr apprenticeship.
From the first day at work, I knew I had made the right decision; I loved every minute of it. My foreman was Ian Atkinson, and we hit it off from day one. He was to become a very good friend, and I had a lot of respect for him. As was usual in those days I was assigned to a mechanic, Andrew Haw, he had just rebuilt a Mini van. One of the other mechanics, Billy Gardiner had a Mini, both fitted with 1100 engines, and Mike Smith in the parts department had a Mk1 Mini Cooper S. I suppose for a while I just watched, listened and made the tea! Then, slowly but surely I began the long learning process. In September that year I started college in Harrogate.
Andrew, Billy and Mike were all interested in Motor sport, in particular rallying. Mike was navigator to a man called Tony Viles who had a Lotus Cortina. I suppose it was inevitable that in this company I would become interested in rallying. As I was not old enough to drive, I started to learn the art of navigating (who needs Sat Nav?), then I could tag along with them when they went out watching the local road rallies.
In the summer of 1971 I bought my first car for the princely sum of £40, a 1961 Mini saloon, (WKW 111). Slowly, with a little help from my friends, as the song goes, I turned it into a car fit for the road.
In December of 1971 the RAC Rally started from Harrogate. After college I went to see an exhibition of old rally cars assembled prior to the start of the rally, it was there that I saw the 1967 Monte Carlo Rally winning “works” Mini Cooper S, LBL 6 D, looking splendid in its Red and White Livery. Andrew and I went out spectating on the rally, and went up into Pickering Forest, I remember watching legends like Stig Blomqvist and my favourite Roger Clark whizzing past in the darkness, lights blazing etc. I was hooked.
After the rally my Mini was completed, now painted Red and White, complete with Cooper grille etc to make it look like a works car. Iwas 17 that December, so it was on with the “L” plates and on to the road.
The Mintex Dales Rally was next in February of 1972, Roger Clark driving “Old Gold” the works Escort, Will Sparrow in the ex works Mini Clubman. We spectated in the Yorkshire Forests, and at Olivers Mount Circuit in Scarborough. I was still navigating at this time as I did not take my driving test until April of that year.
I passed my driving test at the first attempt and I was liberated. The car was soon treated to a set of wide wheels, a noisy exhaust and some spotlights. I was out all the time, up into the Yorkshire Dales and the North Yorkshire Moors having the time of my life, learning my way around the twisty, winding roads that were used on the road rallies. My joy was short lived though as on a rainy night a few months later, I was going around a tight corner, slid off the road backwards, hit a bridge parapet, rolled the car and ended up in a ditch. Apart from a cut on my arm I was not hurt, except for my pride, but I learned a valuable lesson that night; ‘don’t think you are a rally driver just because you have watched the professionals’. The car was quite badly damaged, but at least I was in the right trade to put it right.
At the end of the year the RAC Rally started in York. A memorable event won by my hero Roger Clark in the fabulous “Esso Blue” Escort LVX 942 J. We saw him at the start, speed through the forests and cheered him at the finish, the first victory for the Escort and for Roger.
After the Mintex Dales Rally in February 1973, I bought a 1966 Mini Cooper (HHE 200 D Grey & White) and a 1964 850 (1590 VY White & Black). I loved the Cooper but its days were numbered as it was suffering from terminal tin rot. Whilst the Cooper was still on the road I rebuilt the 850, which I put on the road after the MOT ran out on the Cooper. The Cooper was only seven years old and the shell went to the scrap man, but the engine and running gear although a little tired were retained for a second coming later.
In 1974 I bought a Mk3 Mini 1000 (LWR 767 K Flame Red), into which the rebuilt and much modified Cooper engine and running gear were fitted. I sold the 850 to my friend and colleague Martin Hinchliffe, Martin also bought the redundant 1000 engine and fitted this to the car. Martin started at the garage a year or so after me, and also became bitten by the rallying bug, going on to become a very competent rally driver, achieving many top ten finishes on a number of road rallies in the 80’s along with another colleague Paul Hooper in Martins highly distinctive Vauxhall Viva.
Whilst at college I met Peter Taylor, the man who became and still is my best friend some 30 odd years later. Peter also liked his rallying and we went all over the north in pursuit of all types of car events (and other attractions!).
I sold the 1000 in 1976 after a weekend in which Peter and I saw Escort Mexico’s everywhere we went. Both independently of each other we bought Mexico’s. I arranged to go over to Peter’s house one night to surprise him with my car, only to see parked outside his house his Mexico, waiting to surprise me. The look on our faces must have been a picture. We still remember that night and laugh about it.
Our times and adventures with the Escorts were memorable, but Peter was always the better exponent of rear wheel drive, and after about a year I sold my Mexico and bought a 1970 Mk11 Mini Cooper S (WKK 970 J Almond Green & White). This was an awesome beast with a modified 1275 engine which delivered unbelievable performance. The engine was in need of a rebuild, and on stripping it down I found it was fitted with a BL Special Tuning big valve head, 544 Camshaft, Powermax pistons, running on twin 1½” SU Carbs, LCB Exhaust etc. The engine was rebuilt after having a 40thou overbore, again using Powermax pistons etc. The cars main problem now was that its handling could not cope with the power. The suspension was of the dreaded Hydrolastic variety, fortunately fitted with uprated displacers. I fitted competition front shock absorbers and also a Leyland ST competition bump stop kit. This almost cured the problem but the car had a tendency to “hop” at the rear when cornering hard. The solution was given to me by Brian Harper of Mini Sport, who suggested that I take a hacksaw to the rear bump stops and cut off ½” from the top. It sounds drastic but it really worked, transforming the car into one which handled every bit as good as a “dry” car.
Throughout this time my rallying had taken a more serious path. Andrew and I used to prepare and service a Porsche 911 Carrera RS driven by Fred Brown (owner of Tip Top Stores), and navigated by John Cartwright (the inventor of the Terratrip). This took us all over the country. As well as doing the local stage rallies the car also competed on the Welsh Rally and on the Lombard RAC.
In 1977 I navigated for Martin on the Leeds Crest Stages Rally in his Vauxhall Viva, finishing in a creditable 67th place out of 120 starters, not bad for what was the first ever event for either of us. Martin returned the favour later in the year and navigated for me in the “S” on one of our Motor club’s 12 car events. We were leading at halfway, and some friends that were spectating said we were really flying, but it wasn’t to last, about 20 miles from the finish we got lost! Victory would surely have been ours, but it was not to be. We were at least able to laugh about it afterwards.
I eventually sold the Cooper S after falling foul of the law and subsequently finding it too expensive to insure. I bought a 1976 850 (PWY 865 R, Island Blue), with what can only be described as the best 850 engine I have ever known. Not being allowed to modify the engine on this car, it was treated to a set of decent shock absorbers, wheels and tyres and a roll cage. I had great fun with it, extracting all the performance one could from an 850 whilst revelling in the safe handling it provided.
During the 1980 season, Fred decided to sell the Porsche, and wanted us to build him a “full house” group 4 Escort to use the following year. We managed to obtain one of the last RS bodyshells that were available from Ford. This was sent to ace car builder Tony Drummond of York, who completely prepared the shell for us. Once this was ready it was painted plain white, and we started to put the car together. Fully floating 5 link rear axle, with disc brakes etc, Quaife gearbox, fully adjustable front struts, and a BDA engine built by Tony, that produced 235 bhp on the dyno, Tony said that once the car was run in, he could get us another 30 to 40 bhp simply by changing the camshafts and re-jetting the carbs. The car was an absolute beauty when finished and its first event was to be the Raylor Rally in April of 1981 in the Yorkshire Forests.
My own Mini adventures continued, and when insurance allowed I sold the 850 and bought an 18 month old, immaculate Clubman (PJX 646 T, Denim Blue) with only 2500 miles on the clock. I don’t know whether it was a sign of growing up but I kept this car for 12 months leaving it exactly as it had left the showroom. Before selling the car I had bought a 1965 Mk1 Cortina GT, which I rebuilt and then ran for a while. I had always liked the Mk1 Cortina’s and would have loved to have owned a Lotus, but even then they were out of my price range.
April came and we set off with the Escort for the start of the “Raylor” at Darlington. Scrutineering was on the Friday night prior to the Saturday start. The only problem we had was alternator failure on the journey up, having decided to drive the car the 50 miles to the start as it had not yet covered many miles. We “borrowed” the alternator from Fred’s own Rover 3500 and were allowed to fit it prior to the start.
Early on Saturday morning the competitors set off for the stages, and we set off for the service area at the Fire Tower in the middle of Dalby Forest. We watched cars come and go for the first round of service and at its due time our Escort arrived looking and sounding brilliant. No problems were reported so a quick check over and it was on its way. Next service was due in about an hour so we settled down to lunch, chatting with other service crews etc. I always did like the camaraderie that “most” crews showed. Our next service was due and we were a little worried that our car did not arrive when expected. After about half an hour we started asking other competitors if they had seen our car. The bad news soon came, “the car is on its side in a ditch on stage seven” so we duly waited until we were allowed into the stage and recovered the car. When we surveyed the damage it was only superficial, and had they been able to get it out of the ditch they would have been able to continue. We returned the car to the workshop and with a new rear wheel arch and a bit of paint the car was as good as new.
The car was painted by another rallying work colleague Malcolm “Mally B” Burton. Mally rallied a 1966 Hillman Minx and his navigator was non other than John Millington, who achieved fame as navigator to the great Ronnie Beecroft. John went on to work for Ford and more recently Malcolm Wilson’s “M Sport”.
At this point I decided to give up Rallying for a while. The Escort had taken us a few months to build, in our spare time of weekends and nights, and had put a bit of strain on all our friendships, I wanted a life outside rallying to pursue other interests, one of which came in the shape of Hazel.
I sold my Mk1 Cortina and bought an Escort Harrier, this was a superb car and we loved it, these are now very rare and quite collectible. After Hazel and I got married we went off to the Lake District on our honeymoon. The car was everything you could ask for, decent performance, handling and reasonable economy.
After a period of illness I had to sell the Escort, so we settled down to married life and a Mazda 323. I started my own car repair business at this time (K & H Motor Services), and set about building a good reputation for service, something which had been instilled in me from day one at “Halls garage”.
Hazel and I went out to watch as many rallies as we could including the RAC which in 1988 once again started in Harrogate, our hero at this time was Juha Kankunen.
The business trundled along but these were the dark days of the late 1980’s and although making a living we found it hard going. We did though buy an old Escort Mk11 with a 1600 engine, cage etc, it was painted up and sign written to look like a rally car and we had a bit of fun with it, attending the local rallies at least looking the part.
Sadly pressure built up and in 1989 Hazel and I parted company. I carried on trying to run the business but in the financial climate of the early 90’s I was fighting a losing battle. I rebuilt a 1976 Mini (NKX 73 P White & Blue), but sold this to bring in some much needed cash.
Salvation came in 1992 when I was offered a job with a local engineering company. I was officially the paint sprayer for the company,but my employer Chris had a collection of veteran and vintage vehicles, including a “Blower” Bentley, a Jaguar SS100 and a couple of Rolls Royce Silver Ghosts among others. I was called upon regularly to work on these cars, which was a dream come true. Whilst employed at this company I rarely ventured out on any rallies, as none of my colleagues were particularly interested in going out watching cars scream around (football being their sport, ‘nuf said’).
After a while life became financially a little easier, and I went out and bought a twelve month old Mini Sprite (K 294 FWT Flame Red) 1275 cc as standard. The car was soon treated to a white roof, a Cooper grille and a pair of spotlights (sound familiar?). Whilst this car was very nice, Mini’s by this time had become quite civilised, and were capable of easily cruising at the legal limit. They could still be fun though.
My motoring passion by now had taken a different path. A friend at work Colin Lowe, was very interested In Motorbikes as was my great friend Barry Passman, so after passing my bike test in 1995 I bought a 500cc Kawasaki, using this to learn the riding skills needed to cope with something a little more “on the edge”. In August 1997 I bought a new Kawasaki ZX 6R and we set off for the race circuits, this time our heroes were Carl Fogarty, Jamie Whitham and a little later Neil Hodgson. The Kawasaki was a projectile with incredible performance that would put most rally cars to shame. I also bought a 1967 Wolsley Hornet (SWO 728 G White). I used this car to attend Classic car shows, and with a group of friends, we set up Tadcaster Classic Car Cub.
I then changed my working life completely, leaving the motor trade and engineering behind me and after a couple of false starts in other jobs entered the world of Carpets and curtains at an interiors company. Our MD Martin is interested in Motor sport and motorbikes, and my fellow workers Carter, Grant and Paul are also bikers. Paul is also an ex rallying man, who used to rally a mini himself back in the 1970’s
And so for a while, life carried on in this vein, until in late 2005 I saw an advert for a stage of the Roger Albert Clark rally. It was to be held at Bramham Park, near to where I live, so one cold and frosty Sunday morning I went to see the cars at a road junction where they passed twice. I saw Mk1 and Mk11 Escorts, Lotus Cortina’s and best of all a pair of Red and White Minis!!.
I felt like a fire had been re-lit beneath me (on that morning it would have been welcome). I seemed to find renewed interest in the world of rallying. By chance David Dykes and Robin Barrett, a couple of people that I knew were involved in marshalling on a lot of the rallies in our area, and between Christmas and New Year they were to Marshall on the Christmas Stages rally held at Croft racing circuit. I was asked if I wanted to go with them and I jumped at the chance. It was a very cold day but seeing once again rally cars at close quarters speeding around was exciting. The last stage was run in the dark and the atmosphere was great, lights blazing etc. I felt as if I had been transported back thirty years.
The next event, the Jack Frost Stages was again to be held at Croft but this time my friends weren’t marshalling, so I went spectating on my own. It was the best £7 I have spent in a long time, being free to wander around the service area brought back treasured memories.
It was at this point I knew that I wanted to “have a go” before I was too old, and I also knew that I wanted to do it in a Mini.
