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2012/11 - Neil Howard Memorial Rally (0 images) - created by Adge on 03/12/2012 at 14:58:46
With the championship having finished the week before it was time to have go at a local single venue stage rally to finish the year off. This rally was being held at the Oulton Park race circuit in Cheshire where there had not been any rallying since 1993 when it was last use for a stage of the RAC rally back in the good old days and with Adrian and Mark having both rallied there on separate occasions in the early 80's and 90's when rallying was commonly held there it was time for some nostalgia.

The day dawned cold and damp and with the circuit being very slippy, wet tyres were the order of the day. Seeded at car 22 Adrian was not too convinced a top ten finish would be possible due to the amount of WRC present, but with no pressure it was a day to enjoy themselves.

With the car back to full health after the Cheviot the week before and having competed so recently Adrian was immediately on the pace and revelling in the slippery conditions, 4 wheel drifting around the corners and even with a small off at Lodge Adrian and Mark 8th quickest and with the conditions improving they went even quicker on stage 2 a repeat of stage 1 with 4th quickest time which moved them up to 5th O/A.

Stages 3 and 4 were slightly longer taking in the Shell hairpin and after getting held up by a slower car which cost them a few seconds on stage 3 they maintained 5th O/A, by this time the track was drying well and a change of tyres to slicks was in order.

Stages 5 and 6 were run in the opposite direction which can be a bit daunting on a race circuit as there is less room for error due to there being no run off areas on the entry to corners which where now the exits, however even a slight argument with a tyre chicane didn't dent their pace and they held on to 5th O/A

Things were getting very close for a good result and change to a harder compound front tyre for stage 7 saw them drop a few seconds, but move up to 4th O/A, but a dubious time by car 30 taking fastest time on the stage even beating 3 WRC cars meant they then moved up to only 2 secs behind Adrian and Mark in 5th

Not wanting to lose 4th Adrian and Mark put the pedal to the metal, but pushed a bit too hard going into a chicane resulting in the car on 2 wheels and tyres everywhere costing a few seconds of time and having opened up the chicane for the others saw car 30 beat Adrian and Mark by 3 seconds, resulting in them snatching 4th O/A by 1 second from Adrian and Mark.

Enquiries into the time of car 30 on stage 7 proved fruitless, but still a great result to finish off the year 5th O/A and 2nd in class.

Well that's it for this year and with the car now undergoing its winter rebuild at Adgespeed, the Team are looking forward to 2013.