Adam Wiseberg and Andy Gibson made up for mixed fortunes earlier in the season by taking outright victory on the Ilkley Jubilee... with Andy having guided Bryan Walker to a win on the Quality Scotch corner Hotel event three weeks earlier, he must have been brimming with confidence.
Forty seven crews assembled at the usual start venue - Harry Ramsdens, Guiseley - for Ilkley and District Motor Club's Jubilee Historic Rally, round six of the Speedsport Design Clubmans Championship on Sunday l4th September, writes Henry Carr.
After a small autotest to entertain the spectators, the Saab 96 of last year's winners, Julien Lucking and Richard Norbury, were first to be sent on their way by the event's sponsor, James Hoyle. Following them onto the first regularity over Baildon Moor under the watchful eye of the local constabulary were Chris Hunt-Cooke and David Kirkham's MGB, then Adam Wiseberg and Andy Gibson's Mini.
The navigation for this section was a simple tulip roadbook with distances and times given for each junction and this enabled most crews to drop only a few seconds at the intermediate control s, including Naylor and Pullan, whose tripmeter in their Volvo PV544 stopped as soon as they started the section!
The navigation was no help to Colin Jebson and Chris Barber though, as they succumbed to fuel pump failure in their Austin A35 and lost nine minutes. This section led to the next autotest at Skipton Ford where the morning's rain had made the tarmac surface slippery which saw a number of crews being unable to negotiate the cones and so it was more than just the open top cars who had a wash out, including leading Speedsport contenders, Nick Akers and Simon Mott in their MGB.
From there the event went onto the quick roads of Elslack Moor, the navigation again being basic - grid lines - causing few problems... except for Adrian Cunnington who managed to miss one of the intermediate controls in Tim Ibbott's Triumph TR4A.
By the times the cars reached Coniston Hall for the first special test, the wet conditions caused crews some sideways motoring as the test left the tarmac onto gravel, with Rob Pilcher's Imp continuing on from last year by being quickest on the test, but this year with his navigator, Roger Burkhill, driving and being partnered by Simon Bentley.
First card results showed Wiseberg/Gibson had dropped only 13 seconds at the 11 controls to Coniston, leaving them 17 seconds in from to Gill and Richard Dix's MGB, who were a further 12 seconds ahead of Lucking/Norbury and HuntCooke/Kirkham.
There was only two seconds separating the Semi's Simon Rossiter and John Thompson MGB 1100 from the Volvo of Naylor/Pullan, whose trip was sorted after replacing a fuse, with the Novice class being separated by minutes rather than seconds as the Cortina of Stephen Colclough and Mike Riley was over 11 minutes clear of Adam Hawdon and Hugo Westoff in their PV544.
As the event moved into the dales, a short section from lunch took the crews from Coniston to petrol at Settle, the navigation being out of order, but numbered tulips and the downfall of five crews who missed the intermediate control near Airton.
From Settle the next section took in 40 miles of some classic Dales roads, starting with the section past Pen-y-ghent to Halton Gill where Rebecca and Dominic Barron met some rather stubborn sheep in their Mini and through Littondale and then on to Kettlewell before the steep ascent of Park Rash and up into Coverdale where they encountered television crews filming the latest adaptation of Wuthering Heights... as well as the usual Sunday trippers.
At the break for afternoon tea at High Jervaulx farm the Dales roads had taken its toll on the Triumph TR4 of Ian White and Tony Widdowson with clutch release bearing failure and the MG 1100 of Rossiter/Thompson going one better by being totally clutchless and having to enlist the help of some 'pushy' marshals to keep them hoping and maintain their position as leading Semi's.
Wiseberg/Gibson had consolidated their position at the head of the field now, leading by nearly 30 seconds by dropping nine seconds on this section to Hunt-Cooke/Kirkham's 10, who were now third ahead of Lucking/Norbury and closed the gap to four seconds on the Dixes who were second.
The navigation for the next section was a series of letters and numbers that were overprinted on the route, simple enough, but starting on the top section of the map with a loop to start with around Ellingstring Plantation before moving southwards onto the lower section of the map, going down Pott Moor and Gouthwaite, it was meant to put the pressure on the navigators and caused a change of positions below Wiseberg and Gibson as the Dixes dropped to fourth and Hunt-Cooke/Kirkham to third, Lucking/Norbury moving up to second.
This section led to a new test site at Pioneer Quarry, near to Pateley Bridge, where the special test wasn't in the quarry as it is over 350 feet deep, but on a road built by the quarry to bypass the nearby village. Even though the signs restricted the lorries to 15 mph round the bends, they could be taken by the brave flat in fourth! The quickest here was Nigel Sykes and Nigel Bromley in their MG 1300, followed by the Coopers of Richard Craven/David Barber and Pete Tyson/Neil Harrison. In trouble on the test was the Burkhill/Bentley Imp, yet another clutch casualty and the Dixes, who were running low on fuel.
The final section was defined by junction colours taking crews to West End, where the Dixes dropped out of contention by dropping over a minute at the intermediate control and then finally to the roads around Fewston, where an errant cow delayed Wiseberg/Gibson by over 20 seconds, but not enough for them to relinquish the lead.
The event finished with two special tests at Scargill Pasture and used roads that had last seen action on the Mintex Rally in the seventies. The only real casualty here was the leading Semi crew of Rossiter/Thompson, who struggled in their clutchless MGB and so collected a maximum on the final test. The results saw that Andy Gibson was continuing his winning ways, taking Adam Wiseberg to a convincing victory having led from the start, finally finishing nearly a minute ahead of last year's winners Lucking/Norbury, with the leading Post Historic crew being the Datsun of Nick Robinson and Dave Broxham coming home in third.
Naylor/Pullan benefited from Rossiter/Thompson's downfall at Scargill to take the Semi award, followed by Tony Widdowson's Triumph TR4 with, Sean Holly and Keith Nolan's Triumph heading the Novices home after Colclough/Riley missed a control on the last section.
Ilkley Jubilee Historic Rally - l4th September 1997
| 1 | Adam Wiseberg/Andy Gibson | Mini Cooper | 5:59 |
| 2 | Julien Lucking/Richard Norbury | Saab 96 | 6:47 |
| 3 | Nick Robinsonl/Dave Broxham | Datsun 1200 | 6:49 |
| 4 | Chris Hunt-Cooke/David Kirkham | MGB | 6:49 |
| 5 | Gill Dix/Richard Dix | MGB | 7:42 |
| 6 | Matthew Collier/Paul Doe | Austin A40 | 8:03 |
| 7 | Rebecca Barron/Dominic Barron | Mini | 8:27 |
| 8 | Rod Morris/Jeremy Wright | MGB | 8:49 |
| 9 | Stan Appleton/Heather Appleton | Gilbern GT | 10:33 |
| 10 | Nick Akers/Simon Mott | MGB | 10:42 |