After finishing in the top five for the last five years, Ali Green and Mick Briggs finally won the Ross Traders Historic Rally, but by the slimmest of margins, just one second separating the husband and wife team from the father and son combination of the Appletons in second spot.
Ross and District attracted their usual full entry of 60 historic cars to compete over the 140 miles of regularity sections and nine tests in south Herefordshire. Geoff Twigg, last year's winner, led the field away in his Cooper, along with co-driver, Graham Carter. Paul Pesticcio and Phil Smith set out in his Lotus Cortina at number two, with the Mini Cooper of previous winners, Dick and Mark Appleton at three.
After an initial test at the Livestock Centre, the first regularity was timed to the minute, with 16 cars `clean'. Pesticcio and Appleton were quickest on the second test, and remarkably, they were both equal on the next three regularities timed to the second. The reason became apparent at the end of the event; Pesticcio had no Halda and was taking penalty free lateness to leave the controls on the same minute as the Appletons!
The third regularity towards the Black Mountains used out of order map references and spot heights, with a 242, 234, 242 sequence being possible either way, but the shortest route was the correct one. Skinner/Pettie (Austin A35) and Gibson/Neal (MGB GT) were the main sufferers, collecting fails for a wrong approach.
The first casualty of the morning was the Austin Healey Sprite of Jean and Stan Appleton, who narrowly missed drowning a photographer when the Sprite' s brakes failed on the approach to a ford! Jean managed to steer the car into a banking, Stan repaired the brakes and they made it to the lunch halt, having gracefully retired in the meantime.
Peter Pratt and Julie Eaglen, who had superb results on the previous two rounds, were experiencing the rallying equivalent of a `bad hair day', picking up three fails in the third regularity, leaving them in 37th place at the finish.
An early lunch at Ewyas Harold saw the Appletons leading by 19 seconds from Green/Briggs, with Heal/Briant (MGB GT) a further 25 seconds adrift. Another retirement at lunch was the Mini Cooper of Yorkshire crew Richard Craven and Dave Barber, due to Dave being ill.
A straight-line diagram defined the next regularity, which proved straightforward for most crews. The three tests came next, with Appleton, Pesticcio and Hunt Cooke (MGB) fastest. The route card for the fifth regularity, near Wormelow was just a string of numbers. Green/Briggs quickly solved the mystery of the disguised spot heights, map references and road numbers and were (probably) pleased to see the Appletons - and their attendant Cortina shadow parked up, heads bowed. A crucial couple of minutes were lost, but Twigg/Carter later dropped right out of contention here with a missed control.
Headlights were required for the next test, which wound around and through a fruit packing station, avoiding the cherry picker in the barn - the Appletons were quickest here, trying to claw back as much time as possible. The last regularity through How Caple had no less than nine secret checks and was only cleaned by two crews the Appletons and PesticciolSmith. GreenIBriggs had to reverse for an on-coming tractor and dropped a minute into the next control, a few hundred metres on. Though neither knew it, there was only six seconds in it going into the final three tests. Appleton was three seconds quicker on the first, but could only manage a second each on the last two tests, leaving Ali and Mick as winners.
Ross and District had put together another well thought out event, though some of the navigation caught out more novices than was expected. All sixty-two controls were manned, which was quite an achievement and the results were efficiently published as final before 7.30 pm. So the winners went home to Bognor Regis delighted with the win that had eluded them for so long.