The Riponian Stages Rally 2005 - Sunday 6th February By Matt Rudd

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The Kall Kwik rally based at Pickering in North Yorkshire is always one of those events where it is almost like summer time; warm and sunny. However in truth it is always cold and snowy. The event was the first round of the 2005 ANCRO Clubman Gravel Rally Championship. This wasn't the only championship, others included the Peugeot 206 1400 and many local championships.

The event is split into two; one part of the event is for 2 wheel drive cars (the Kall Kwik Rally), the National Rally is for the 4 wheel drives. Both these events had some brilliant entries. For instance the National Rally had last year's winner Ryan Champion (Whitby), Steve Petch in his Hyundai Accent, his son Steven among some other great drivers. In the Kall Kwik Rally we had Alan Richardson (Nova), Jon Finch in his BMW and Steve Captain Magson in the Astra RWD.

This event, like any other, was a challenge for some competitors but even more so for the first set of cars on the first few stages. Some of them didn't have any snow tyres and when the ground is covered in snow this really could be a problem and for many it was.

This was also a problem for us getting there in our front wheel drive Ford Fiesta. It was fine once we got out of East Yorkshire but while we were in the county we were struggling for grip. We did get there in the end and the event was well worth the fun drive. Someone in an Audi A3 didn't have much of a fun drive as when they got to the forest they ditched their car.

Because of the extended traveling time, we did miss the majority of the first Dalby stage but for run 2 we headed up to the famous Dalby Quarry. By then there wasn't much snow on the track - instead, it was very wet and slippery with mud. Dave Hemingway (MK2 Escort) found this out on this stage as he slide off the road into a ditch. He did, however get the car back on the road to the end of the stage but he was excluded as he was over his allocated time limit.

Many over cars had found the conditions were awful the hard way which left the recovery crews with a big job. At the quarry the 2 wheel drive cars were very entertaining - lots of sideways action. But then the well known popping sound began and the 4 wheel drives (National Rally) were on their way.

These guys were obviously much faster which meant more mud and water was thrown up behind them so once again I had a heavy covering of mud all over me!

Continued next page,

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