| | Saturday 18th November 2006 until Monday 20th November saw the Roger Albert Clark Rally, based in Harrogate and run by De Lacy Motor Club take place. This rally is an infamous test of man and car as it covers 200 stage miles of testing forest stages and it is based on how the "old" RAC rally used to be with the emphasis on endurance!
Jack Cooke, a dentist from Harrogate and his brother, Mike decided to take the RAC challenge on and duly hired the GwynneSpeed Peugeot 306 GTi-6 to contest the rally. Unfortunately, Jack's busy schedule meant that he had no time for testing the car prior to the event and so his first experience of driving the 2.0 litre 16 valve machine was on the way to the 1st stage around Yorkshire Showground!
For the duration of day 1, the Cooke brothers set consistent stage times and due to an unfortunate brake problem on stage 4 they were forced drop some time. Jack had decided to treat day 1 purely as a test day in order for him to learn the car and get used to driving a front wheel drive car. However at the end of day 1, they lay 12th overall in the open rally and 8th in class.
Day 2 started from Carlisle and showed how much Jack and Mike had got used to the car and started to gain confidence. However a cold, icy first stage was possibly not what they needed to start day 2 with. Stage 12 caught a lot of people out with 12 cars going off in Ae forest. This meant that Jack & Mike were forced to slow right down when passing the crashed cars. On the second run through Ae they took 2 minutes 30 seconds out of their own time! During day 2, the brothers got up to 6th overall & 5th in class in the open rally. An unlucky incident involving a sharp rock on stage 18 caused the crew to lose a lot of time with a puncture although they ended day 2 lying 8th overall and 7th in class.
Following the overnight halt in Carlisle, day 3 started badly - stage 20 was a re-run of stage 18 and unbelievably, the same sharp rock struck again and caused another puncture! This was a sign of things to come for day 3 and for the crew suffered a total of 3 more punctures due to the rough Kielder stages. The impact on the rock also caused a stress fracture to the 306's subframe which became apparent after stage 25, the grueling 18.8 miles of Pundershaw. However the crew managed to nurse the car back to service at Croft where the GwynneSpeed service crew repaired the damaged subframe and enabled Jack & Mike to go on and set 3rd fastest stage time on the last stage of the rally! However the bad luck of having 4 punctures during the event meant that they finished 11th overall & 7th in class in the open rally.
The fact that the crew finished this extremely tough rally is a true testament to not only Jack & Mike but also the car and all of the GwynneSpeed crew!
Congratulations!!
View video clips:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNf4H87phvY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A98Crt-0V3U&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy1TA9deNsE&mode=related&search=
For more details about the rally, visit:
http://www.rogeralbertclarkrally.co.uk
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| | Posted 11/22/2006 3:34 PM - 239 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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