As with the Formula 1 World Championship decider the week before, the HRCR Road Rally Championship for Drivers went right down to the wire.  At the start of the event, Clerk of the Course, Dick Appleton had a two point lead from both Geoff Twigg and Peter Horsburgh.  However, the points scoring system with a maximum of 8 finishes to count including at least 2 night events meant that a win for Twigg would put him 1 point clear at the head of the table whilst either a win for Horsburgh or a second place for Twigg would leave either driver tied on points with Appleton.  In each case Appleton would suffer on the tie decider (higher finish on first championship event as he didn't compete on the first championship round which Horsburgh won with Twigg fourth.  Thus in the event that Horsburgh won with Twigg second the ensuing three way tie would be resolved in Horsburgh's favour.  Confused?  Well don't worry.  The protagonists all understood each of the permutations and the pressure could be seen on their faces at the start.  Slip ups today could be very costly indeed.

An excelent entry of 51 crews turned up at the start at Bath & West Showground near Shepton Mallett on a bright but cold Sunday morning.  Seeded first were last years winners Paul Channon & Robin Maclachlan in their immaculate white MGA Twin Cam roadster.  They were followed by Horsburgh partnered again by Anthony Preston, Twigg with newly crowned champion navigator Graham Carter, and Adam Wiseberg with runner-up navigator Peter Blackett.  All three crews were in Minis.  Cliff Doe had 17 year old novice navigator Jonathan Berrie with him at 5 whilst at 6 Richard Dix was trying his hand at driving in his MG Midget with Dave Wilson on the maps.  Competing together for the first time at 11 were championship co-ordinator Andy Gibson and Julie Eaglen whilst late entry of Worth Birkhill and Robin Cardale gave them a start number of 33.

The event started with 6 tests at the showground.  The Minis were dominant here with Wiseberg quickest by 3 seconds from Horsburgh with Twigg a further 4 seconds behind.  Minis occupied the first 6 places with Wood Gibbons in 4th, Foster/Marsh in 5th and Birkhill tying with the Hughes brothers Volvo Amazon in 6th.  How hard the leaders were trying can be judged from the fact that although only 7 seconds covered the first three,  test expert Martin Neal's Midget in 7th place was 38 seconds behind the leader at this juncture.  The marshals were kept amused when one car hit a sheep shearing shed and duly received a 10 second penalty for driving on the grass.  Less fortunate were Valerie & Graham Gilmore who retired their MGB with ignition problems.  The crews progressed from the showground to regularity 1 where most of the leading crews managed single figure totals except Wiseberg/ Blackett whose wrong slot cost them 30 seconds and a drop down the order from 1st to 5th.  Horsburgh now led by 5 seconds from Twigg.  The next four tests at Zeals began with a disaster for Horsburgh who slid off the concrete road into a ditch and, although he managed to regain terra firma, lost over a minute in the process and dropped to 8th.  Now 80 seconds behind Twigg, Horsburgh believed his championship hopes had disappeared, but, in the best traditions of road rallying, pressed on regardless.  After all, it's never over, 'til it's over!  Twigg was fastest over these 4 tests by 7 seconds from Wiseberg with Channon/Maclachlan 4 seconds behind.  Twigg/Carter now led overall from Wiseberg/Blackett with Wood Gibbons lying 3rd overall on only their second historic rally.  Derek Skinner was a little over enthusiastic in the big Healey and dropped it into Horsburgh's ditch where it remained wedged until extracted by a tow from the landowner's 4 x 4.  A maximum on the test meant that they lost around 2 and a half minutes to the fastest crews.    Chris Pearson/Rob Faulkner (Sprite) and Tony Falder/Kit Stewart (MGB) brought the total retirements to 3 at this stage. On regularity 2 only  Dix/Wilson, Horsburgh/Preston and Skinner/Pettie managing to stay in single figures but Twigg still led overall though now Channon had pulled himself into 2nd place.

Regularity 3 was more problematical for the navigators with several difficult changes of speed and best again on this one were Dix/Wilson on 20 seconds.  Next up were Horsburgh/Preston on 34 followed by Twigg/Carter on 36.  These were large penalties for top expert crews over four controls and gave Horsburgh some cause for hope.  He had pulled back to 6th overall and thought that perhaps the afternoon would see major errors by the four crews in front of him.  Two more test preceeded lunch and Wiseberg was equal fastest with Wood and Birkhill 1 second faster than Andy Gibson.  Alan & Michael Fogg's Riley 1.5 broke its' differential and they retired after completing these two tests.

At the lunch time petrol halt the order was :
 

1	Twigg	Carter	Mini Cooper 'S'	13:47
2	Wiseberg	Blackett	Mini Cooper	14:19
3	Birkhill	Cardale	Mini Cooper 'S'	14:27
4	Channon	Maclachlan	MGA Twin Cam	14:28
5	Horsburgh	Preston	Mini Cooper 'S'	14:55
6	Dix	Wilson	MG Midget	15:01
7	Gibson	Eaglen	MGB GT	15:43
8	Neal	Neal	MG Midget	15:47
9	Manktelow	Evans	Escort Sport	16:03
10	Doe	Berry	Riley	16:54

Deputy Clerk of the Course Mark Appleton was assuring those who had found the last regularity of the morning tough, that "you ain't seen nothin' yet".  As the crews set off for the slightly shorter afternoon leg 2nd placed Wiseberg/Blackett discovered that their trip meter was failing to count at all.  A couple of minutes spent checking connections yielded no improvement and so they decided (having dropped back behind their scheduled time) to enter the regularity start on the same minute as Dix/Wilson and rely on Dave Wilson's expertise to deliver them to each control on time.  As Wilson had acheived the best performance of the morning on regularities this appeared to be a canny move but, unfortunately, Dave blotted his copybook losing 2 minutes at the next 2 controls.  Horsburgh/Preston were the best crew here on 11 seconds with Twigg/Carter 5 seconds behind and so the order after regularity 4 was Twigg, Horsburgh, Channon, Wiseberg, with Dix and Gibson tying in 5th.  The next 2 tests were actually 11 and 12 run in opposite direction and Horsburgh was fastest by 1 second from Twigg then Wiseberg and Birkhill another second slower.  Horsburgh was still 62 seconds behind Twigg and the championship appeared Surrey bound as the crews tackled the last competitive road section, regularity 5.

Wiseberg/Blackett were still without a trip meter and managed to persuade Twigg/Carter to drop back 1 minute in order to follow them through the final four controls. Disaster now appeared to strike all the leading crews as a herd of cows were led down a narrow white to be milked.  Eventually, cars 1 to 8 were in line astern in this slow moving procession.  Broadly speaking, each car had lost one less minute that the one in front by the time the cows were led into the milking yard.  Channon/Maclachan were slightly better off than subsequent crews as their MGA had been trapped in the middle of the herd and got away before the others but they still lost almost 6 minutes at the next intermediate.  The three Minis of Horsburgh, Twigg and Wiseberg were together on the road and entered the next control in line astern but as Twigg had started 2 minutes after Horsburgh Peter's challenge appeared to have faded.  He lost 6 minutes at the IRTC to Twigg and Wiseberg's 4 minutes and Twigg though he had been ousted from first place by later runners who had not been held up whilst Peter believed he was 3 minutes behind Geoff.  However, the event had already been decided by a tricky piece of navigation which had caused 28 of the remaining 46 runners to miss a code board a few miles before the cows had appeared.  Thus Channon, Twigg, Wiseberg, Dix, Birkhill, Neal et al incurred a 10 minute penalty and, lo and behold the leader going into the final 6 tests was Peter Horsburgh.  He was 45 seconds in front of Andy Gibson with Colin Hewitt and Andrew Swann's Vitesse 106 seconds behind in 3rd place.  Ali Green and Ann Locks were next then Cliff Doe/Jonathan Berrie with a dejected Geoff Twigg in 6th.  Without the 10 minute penalty he would have been over two minutes clear of the next crew and would almost have been able to push his car round the final tests and still win.  Wiseberg/Blacket thought they were going to have to do just that when the gear lever jumped out of the selector fork as the attempted test 15.  They repaired it at the side of the road and managed to complete the event but 11 places behind their promising lunchtime position.

Geoff Twigg was 3 seconds faster than Peter Horsburgh on these last 6 tests whilst Martin Neal performed rather better than in the morning beating Worth Birkhill into 4th best on these by three seconds.

As the crews awaited the results whilst consuming an excellent supper at the Showground finish venue none of them were really sure who had emerged from the afternoon's various debacles with the least penalties.  Peter Horsburgh/Anthony Preston were delighted but surprised winners whilst Julie Eaglen, who had navigated Andy Gibson's Post Historic MGB to 2nd overall was even more astonished having believed that errors costing over 4 and a half minutes on the last regularity would have dropped them out of top 10.  Fortunately, she'd plotted the correct route and they'd not missed the offending code board and 2nd was a worth reward for a fine performance from a scratch crew.  Colin Hewitt/Andrew Swann scored a best ever third overall (2nd Historic) with Ali Green/Ann Locks 4th and Cliff Doe's young navigator, Jonathan Berrie getting the excellent reward of 5th for the skill shown in correctly interpreting the tricky route instructions.  Geoff Twigg finished first of the crews who had missed PCL but was clearly upset after almost having his hands on the Drivers Championship trophy only to see it slip from his grasp.

It's never over till it's over!

Interestingly 9 of the first 10 finishers on this event were cars which would have been prepared at Abingdon in the 50's and 60's with an unusually strong showing from MG.  Despite this BMC domination it was delightful to see such rare beasts as a Facel Vega III, Reliant Sabre 6, Alfa Romeo GS and Gilbern Genie plus a relatively rare VX4/90 and Datsun 1200 Coupe.  It can be very boring to see Minis filling the top placings at every event, and somewhat dispiriting for the non Mini-mounted competitors so it was pleasing to see the placings spread around a bit more on the last two events of the season.  Existing and would be competitors take note - variety is the spice of life so let's see pleant of different cars out on next year's championship events.

As far as the Driver's Championship went, any of the three protagonists would have been worthy champions and everyone was happy to congratulate Peter Horsburgh on the narrowest of victories over Dick Appleton.  Let's hope that next years championship produces similarly intense competition with another cliffhanger of a final round.  Thanks to all the event organisers, marshals and officials but particlularly to Andy Gibson for his work in making this years championship such a successful one.

Results
 
 

1	Peter Horsburgh	Anthony Preston	Mini Cooper 'S'	29:22
2	Andy Gibson	Julie Eaglen	MGB GT	30:26
3	Colin Hewitt	Andrew Swann	Triumph Vitesse	32:45
4	Ali Green	Ann Locks	Mini Cooper	34:58
5	Cliff Doe	Jonathan Berrie	Riley 1.5	36:07
6	Geoff Twigg	Graham Carter	Mini Cooper 'S'	36:21
7	Worth Birkhill	Robin Cardale	Mini Cooper 'S'	38:43
8	Richard Dix	Dave Wilson	MG Midget	39:35
9	Lesley Neal	Martin Neal	MG Midget	39:36
10	Warren Marsh	John Broughall	MG Magnette	40:17

AHW.