The Hamsterley Forest Rally 2005 - 13th November By Matt Rudd

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The Hamsterley Forest Rally, only in its second year after its cancellation last year for lack of entries, returned back on the 13th November. The event itself was all based within the Hamsterley Forest complex, near Bishop Auckland in County Durham. The rally attracted a great entry; just slightly over 100 cars had entered which was the events maximum entry.

Top names entered in the rally included the 2003 winner Barry Johnson (Impreza WRC) who was tipped for this years win, Roger Duckworth had also entered in his old Impreza WRC.

Another person tipped for a top 3 result was Steven Petch in one of his dads Hyundai Accent WRC cars. This was Steven's first time in an ex WRC spec car his dad Steve was doing course car in the other Accent WRC car. A large bulk of the entries this year were from the 205 and BMW RWD challenge competitors in which this was the final round of the championship.

For the event we were located on stages 2, 4 and 5 which were all repeats of one another. For the first run (stage 2) we stood at post 35 which was a fast entry left hander, then on the exit a slight jump. Unfortunately, due to a delay during travelling time, we did miss a large amount of the cars however we did see more than expected after a delay from an accident on the first stage.

The main excitement with being this far into the stage was that cars were catching each other up, 3 or more times this happened - mainly with the 205 Challenge competitors. During a large gap between cars, we started walking further into the stage ready for the second run (stage 4). On the way we were met by one of the BMW Challenge cars towing an Escort Mk2, followed by a host of course cars.

Then, after a large incline, we found our new location which was mid point in a section of 4 corners in succession.

Another advantage of this section was you could see earlier into the stage as the other side of the valley was part of the same stage. A few minutes ahead of car 1 were the 2 course cars; Steve Petch, in one of his Hyundai Accent WRC's looked great coming through the section however the second course car - which is the 05 Challenge's celeb car, looked much quicker with James Wozencroft behind the wheel.

Then, over the other side of the valley we saw the blue ex Petter Solberg Impreza of Barry Johnson. It was minutes until the first cars were at our side of the valley and the first car wasn't Johnson; it was the Evo of Tony Thompson. Johnson had gone off in the stage and was a good 7 minutes behind. He was just behind Donovan Jenkin in the Escort WRC.

Johnson's car didn't look badly damaged, he was just missing his front bumper. Petch junior also got held up behind Johnson. Barry retired on this stage after his 100mph crash resulting in a damaged car and a broken wrist.

Continued..... Next Page

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