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ALAN ROGERS HISTORIC RALLY

Woolbridge MC organised the Alan Rogers Historic Road Rally on Sunday 9th April 2000, based at the county town of Dorchester. It was the second round of the Azorie HRCR Historic Road Rally Championship and was won by the local Mini Cooper S crew of Worth Birkill and Robin Cardale.

The Rally offered 140 miles of scenic Dorset countryside, most of which was regularity sections set at between 20 mph and 30 mph. Although it was a navigational rally, the route was described by conventional tulip roadbook plus handouts with four examples of straightforward navigation styles; the intention was to encourage newcomers into the sport not put them off. In addition to the above there were five manoeuvrability tests on private land to keep the drivers amused.

The event was as much a social occasion as it was a motoring competition, culminating with a prizegiving buffet at the Colliton Club in Dorchester on Sunday evening.

Alan Rogers Rally full results - Download an Excel file

Here's what some of our championship contenders had to say about the Alan Rogers Historic Road Rally

"I enjoyed the rally immensely. Having had a non-finish in Devon, I was concerned about the car, and quite relieved to finish the drive down to Dorchester without any sign of problems, and in good time for scrutineering. As with everything else on the event, the pre-start formalities were friendly and efficient, and we even had time for some breakfast before starting. Although Chas had to rush his so that he could get the plotting done. This seemed straight forward, and he had all of the first half, and some of the second half, on the map before we started."

"I was so pleased that unlike almost every other event, we didn't start with a round the pylons Mini-fest. My car is possibly the slowest competing in the championship and it galls me that we are usually already well behind the rest of the field before we even leave the start venue because of time lost on tests. On this occasion, we could compete on equal terms right up to lunch."

"The roads used were excellent. I haven't rallied in that area, in the daylight before, but enjoyed it immensely. I particularly liked the way the organisers had put signs out on the narrower roads to warn the general public on on-coming traffic. Something that was to become a navigation aid during the afternoon. Like most people, we fell foul of the 'road penalties' trap, but that was just bad preperation - it was clear enough in the regs, and like it or not, it was the same for everyone. The afternoon contained the bulk of those confounded tests although none were too tight, so I could at least drive at the cars optimum pace. The road sections were much more open than in the morning, so the organisers wisely threw in a plot and bash section which was great fun. It's a pity the "crossing grid lines" section had multiple solutions, but one of those warning signs put us back on the right track and we found the control after a little wrong-slot."

"The only let down of the event was after it was finished, when after quite correctly adjusting the results because of the grid lines section and an incorrect watch, the organisers allowed all the "Blue Book lawyers" to change the results again and again. Without knowing the full details, my impression was that they should perhaps have taken a firmer line about publishing a provisional result with a fixed time limit for queries. This would have stopped the snowball effect that occured. As it happened, the changes they made actually improved our result, but it would have been better to get to that point at seven o-clock rather than eight. All in all, this was a great event. The balance of regularity, pre-plot, plot and bash and those tests seemed about right, and I for one will be back next year."

Terry Schraider - Sunbeam Rapier - Car 3

"I was a competitor until 7.30am and 5 miles from Dorchester when the mobile rang and it was Peter Noad saying that the clutch was slipping on the Audi 80GT and he was going to return to Wembley. So, was it a case of turning back to Lambourn and doing some gardening (no, it was raining!) or carry on and do a bit of marshaling or spectating? Motorsport won and I must have been the first prospective marshal to turn up. However, the bad? news was that there was a plentiful supply of marshals in the morning but that some were needed on the afternoon test sites. Looking at the morning route available from the road book there looked a nice little triangle on the first regularity at 598885. Terry Schraiders son was also out spectating and I must admit a few competitors looked a bit surprised to see 2 spectators, so surprised that some of them took the extra 50m along the road to the (almost) impossible hairpin back. It had looked like an excellent case for a LWRNAM triangle until a local arrived at the same point as a competitor was doing his 3 point execution of the hairpin."

"The ford at Sydling St Nicholas was the next stop and sure enough, it must be good for there was Tony Large ready to take the pictures. The most spectacular (i.e. the biggest splash!) must have been the smallest car, with the smallest driver! Derek Skinner had a big grin on as he accelerated the A35 through the dip into the ford and sent the 10ft high spray over Tony Large. Other notables were the Pratt TR2 which almost lost a front wing and Ali Green who caught the Mini's number plate on the way in and left the ford with it trailing on the ground, held on at one end."

"The test at Canada Farm was the chosen marshaling point and it was good to find one of my local clubs running the test. Kevin Rivers from Dolphin MC welcomed my visit and I ended up controlling the farm yard section. That part was after the first loop right down to an anticlockwise grass triangle and then turning into the yard to reverse between 2 pylons. That was probably the first time many of the newer competitors had used reverse gear competitively (that's unless they had overshot a few junctions!) and it did show. We had an action plan in case competitors took too long doing this bit as they would meet the next competitor at the junction. It almost came into play as the Schraider Sunbeam Rapier engine cut out and I was just on the point of calling the start on the radio when it coughed into life again and the cleared the junction with 2 seconds to spare. One or two competitors needed "encouragement" to get their front wheels across the line (how many didn't read the words where the stop astride look of the diagram was clearly instructed as ...all four wheels over line C - C). The neatest driver was Andy Gibson (MGB), but then he has a good heritage in autotesting - a plug here for competitors to have a go at competitive autotesting. Why not have a go at your local club grass events, or even the ACSMC grass championship -give me a ring on 01488 72027 if you would like more details."

"We thought it was all over until the delightful red Renault Alpine A110 of Peter Goldsborough/Sophie Price came along some 10 minutes after the previous competitor. The sight and sound was well worth waiting for."

"I thought a trip back to the finish to hear competitors views would be worthwhile and sure enough the biggest comments were the due times for the road sections without penalty free allowance. The results weren't final when I left but it was good to seen then on the Woolbridge MC internet site by 10pm that evening. All that watching was frustrating for a competitor, but then its not long to our next event, the Hughes. See you all there."

Peter Cox, Car 14 (Non-starter)


"We found this a tough event. Not that it was impossibly difficult, but there was constant pressure and we could not relax."

"We got caught out by the road timing, but once we realised that penalties were being applied we made sure we were on time. I do not think that this approach is correct for a daytime event in a populated area. The timing was fairly tight, especially when you consider that the route was often through built up areas. The temptation to act anti-socially is just too great if you are late. It was clear, talking to those around us, that a fair number of people had
no idea that road timing was important."

"We had managed to get the first half of the route plotted before the start, and we were trouble free up to lunch apart from a couple of minor wrong slots."

"We plotted the remainder of the route at lunch. The afternoon was good until the last regularity where we could not get the herringbone to fit on the end of the grid line section. We had of course plotted the 'short' route over the grid lines and missed the intended control. Having arrived at the crossroads where a decision was required we let 4 cars past us to see where they went - 2 went straight on and 2 to the left - that was no help. Then one of the straight-ons came back, then one of the left-turns came back! Nothing for it, we had to work it out. This took 7-8 minutes and we
were on our way again. We were lucky the penalties at this point were scrubbed."

"Overall a good event. We were expecting it to be technical, and it was. You need a mix of events in the series which is fine as long as people know what to expect."

John Ball and Howard Sutton, car 31.

"Both Richard Fisher (driver) and I (Neil Lewis) had an enjoyable day's competition and much preferred the mostly navigational format with fewer tests since our Lancia Fulvia just can't manage to keep up with the Mini Coopers in the tight and twisty tests which most clubs put on. In fact I would even prefer to have less pre-plot and more "plot-n-bash" handouts."


"In general we seem to have cracked the regularity except in the few instances where I cocked up the navigation but, when we got it right, we were coming in with penalties in single figures. Bearing in mind that we are using the car's own trip meter and only one stop watch we were really pleased with our performance on those. I must remember to buy an extra stop watch to time the whole section."

"We were rather disappointed that between the results being Provisional and then going Final we got demoted from 12th place to 15th and, more crucially, second in class; we just can't see how that could have happened. We just couldn't wait any longer for the results to be finalised so at 8:15 we left so that Richard could get back to Shropshire. We realised that there was a mistake in the route instructions and that one clock was set incorrectly but once those were corrected we couldn't see why anything else would need to have been changed. It did seem that once those two errors came to light it opened the flood gates for everyone to query the results. Every rally in the Championship has its own character and we need to be enjoying them for what they are and not trying to gain a few places by "taking the regs apart".

"We were caught out by the timing between the last ITC in a section and the next regularity start or MTC but so did everyone else and, anyway, it was as described in the regs. we just didn't realise until lunchtime. Other rallies try to start each competitor on the regularity sections on different minutes and, by so doing, allowing everyone to drive at their own pace and that was what the marshals were attempting to do! To do this any timing penalties other than being before the scheduled time or after maximum lateness have to be disregarded. We had it sorted by the afternoon and then I sent us the wrong way on leaving Test 3 and we lost several minutes at TAC4! Oh well that's rallying..."

"I hope that the affairs at the finish haven't discouraged the organisers too much and that we can look forward to next year's event."

Richard Fisher and Neil Lewis, Car 27

"I thought that this was a very good event apart from the link section timing. I think that the balance between tests and regularity timing points was perfect. For me this is what daytime regularity rallying is all about."

"I actually omitted to plot an approach direction on a pre-plot section, realising my mistake in Milton Abbas we backtracked loosing almost 6 minutes. As I was plotting at the start, a novice started tapping on my window needing advise on his Halda which had stopped working. The distraction happened whilst plotting MR's - I had plotted the point, then whilst distracted did not go back to mark the approach - hence the cock-up. This is my excuse for Gill - does it sound OK?"

"I did get some "fresh breath" on the last regularity when I first found Geoff Twigg approaching the first timing point from the wrong direction, then he went straight on at a crossroads when we turned left (crossing grid lines). Then we passed the Does who were parked up scratching their heads& .."

"I still thought that this was a good rally and should be kept in the Championship. I hope that the Organisers were not disheartened by the queries."

Gill and Richard Dix, Car 10