A rather last minute decision by Mick Jones to do the Roger Albert Clark Rally saw a hunt for a suitable car. One was eventually found in Ammanford, West Wales. An ex-Mark Solloway car fitted with a 2 litre Vauxhall lump and pretty much all the right bits on it. A deal was struck to hire it for the R.A.C. and also the Cambrian Rally as a shakedown a couple of weeks before. The Cambrian went well with Mick leading the class by a country mile until he tipped it up right in front of the video crews... ooops!

Now Mick hadn't driven an Escort in the woods since early 1990. At the end of SS1 he was huffing and puffing like he had just ran a marathon..! I just had to chuckle to myself when I saw his red face, he felt like his arms were dropping off..! "I can't remember an Escort being this hard work!!" a panting Mick groaned. The power steering of modern 4WD cars had made the old boy soft methinks.

But you wouldn't have thought so on SS2, when he was 6th fastest overall on Penmachno. "That's more like it..! Isn't it great to be so sideways again... that's it I'm selling the Evo III and getting one of these again!"

We had a great tussle with the Squires twins all day but in the afternoon our tyres were not so hot so we did drop a bit of time to them. But hell was it fun, the sound, the smell, the looking out of the side windows at just about every corner. This was what rallying was really about. The Roger Albert Clark was going to be real fun with out a doubt!

Just a little bit of panel damage to repair after the whoopsie... not a problem! Many thanks to the "Crash Crew" for the video clip, glad we made you smile. 
So a couple of weeks later it was off to Sheffield to the Don Valley Stadium for the start of the Roger Albert Clark Rally. With the Escort entered in the Open Category due to the Vauxhall engine we were not eligible for overall awards, but we would be seeded accordingly and so we actually started around 12th on the road, just behind Steve Bannister in "Ethel". SS1 and SS2 were just the short blasts around the Don Valley Stadium. We ended the day joint leaders with Stig Blomqvist, Jimmy McRae and Steve Bannister all on the same time. If we hadn't slid a little too wide on the final hairpin we could have led, but a second or two was lost scrabbling for grip. End of day one. Day two dawned cold and icy. Narrow ice tyres were chosen for the two stages in Bramham Park. we took it steady on the first run and on the second run the gearbox let go with a big bang. Mick managed to get a gear and limped out of the stage and in typical RAC fashion the box was changed in a layby on the main road.

The spare box was jumping out of gear so a spare was then sourced... back in Wales! A couple of people were despatched down to fetch it and bring it up to service at Carlisle Airport, where it was changed at the end of day two.

Not that our dramas for the day were over yet. Onwards to Croft racing circuit for another couple of stages. In typical Mad Mick style he entertained the crowds with a couple of spins. One in particular in front of MSport boss Malcolm Wilson, where Mick did a full 360 with no loss of forward motion. Malcolm came up to Mick in the service area after the stages and congratulated him on the recovery. A slight throttle problem saw us a little later leaving the service than anticipated, but still with plenty of time to get across country to Greystoke for the first of the forest stages.

A few miles out the car just ground to a halt... electrical failure. A frantic search revealed the culprit. One of the cables to the alternator had broken after the vibration caused during the gearbox failure in Bramham. The battery was dead.

A replacement was needed... fast! No problem, it was taken off Mick's road car which was being used as a tyre carrier. But the alternator was knackered. Not enough time to change it. We decided to drive on battery power and keep swopping batteries. Now there was just one problem, we had 60 miles to go and 59 minutes to get there. A rather rapid crossing of the Pennines saw us arrive at Greystoke with a minute to spare.

Right, now it was time to relax I thought... a fatal mistake! On with helmets, map out, 5,4,3,2,1 GO!

About 400 yards into the stage there appears this square left...! Not on my map...! Puzzled, I tell Mick to drive on sight for a minute, then I realised what was wrong. We were on SS7, but I had grabbed SS8 out of my bag...ooops! I reach down into my rallybag and quietly pull out the correct map. Pick up the stage and we carry on with no more hiccups to the end of the stage. A rather bemused Mick turns to me at the stage finish and asks what happened, I told him and he roared laughing, but he takes great pleasure in telling everyone in sight what a tit I was!

Once into the woods Mick was in his element. The fog in Scotland was hard going during the night stages. But the way Mick was driving you would have thought it was as clear as crystal. I asked him if he could see much, he replied. "No, read for your life... you get it wrong and we're going off big style!" Boy, did I get my head down after that!

We returned to Carlisle Airport at the end of day two and the new gearbox arrived and was fitted. But still no working alternator. So back to swopping batteries again on day three. Mick elected to run on just one spotlight for the first run through Ae. No headlights... just one spotlight. It cost us around a minute, but at least the battery lasted out. It was changed at the end of the stage and by the time we got back to service in Carlisle around lunchtime we were back up to 3rd overall as Bannister had had a roll. It was just a light one, but it was enough to drop him back down the order a bit.

We were hoping for a nice clean run through Ae on the second run, but it was not to be. A puncture caused us to have to stop and change it, the jack collapsed and we lost 5 minutes chaging the wheel. That wound Mick up good and proper and he was off on one then. Even I was beginning to raise an eyebrow at some of the cornering angles we were getting, but I just carried on reading and let him get on with it.

Mick said after the stage that when he got riled up and really attacked he found the car reacted better. He reckoned he had forgotten just how fired up you had to be to get an Escort to go really well. Well it meant I was going to have an interesting time just trying to keep him in check because when he gets in that sort of mode it gets quite spectacular.

Well it was all going according to plan. After the puncture had lost us five minutes we had dropped back down the order to around 12th overall and had begun the climb back to finish day three around 6th overall.

Studying the times overnight it looked like third overall was reachable and we set that as our goal. The first stage in the morning saw us move up two places and just about catch the car in front in around six miles. The grin was firmly back in place by now and Mick was driving well. The maps were reading like a dream and it was looking good.

Then we moved on to Chirdonhead. Mick was now on maximum attack as the daylight arrived. It was cold, icy and frosty and still foggy in places. Midway through the stage coming downinto a dip there was a bridge and the road had washed out going onto it. We hit it flat in fifth. My nose almost went through the poti..! It knocked the wind out of both of us and I made a note of it for next run through. The time felt very quick and as we approached the long open 90 left through the flying finish it all went horribly wrong in typical Team Chaos fashion.

The Escort snapped sideways under braking on the downhill approach to the corner on the ice. Mick in typical unflustered fashion dived for the grass

verge in a hunt for some grip. Hidden in the grass was a drop off the edge. A wheel dropped over the edge and we slid along on the sumpguard until a bump fired us out and across the road like a cork out of a bottle. We shot across the road sideways went over the edge of a culvert, cleared a very cold and icy looking brook and hit the bank the other side. This cartwheeled the car which stood on it's nose and finally fell back onto my side. Clambering out I asked Mick what happened, he said, "My fault... I drove like a tit!". Apart from two punctures and panel damage the car was ok, just too far off the road and down a steep bank to allow recovery before we went OTL.

It was a shame we were out, but Mick vowed there and then to return next year once more and have another go. It has to be the best event we have done. Cracking stages, well organised and the atmoshpere... well what can we say. To see so many spectators out there cheering everyone on in freezing conditions. It made the event for us. But the biggest difference to modern events was the condition of the stages. Even with double usage the stages were in mint condition with no ruts and corners like a ploughed field after a host of 4WD cars have torn the stages up.

This is what rallying should be like, it was what we first went rallying for and what we will be returning for.

Hats off to De Lacy Motor Club for a true RAC Rally. If I only do one rally this year this is the one I want to do. Mick feels the same way too. Hopefully come November we will be there once again. Ready to roll as they say!

So get ready for some more Chaos in November!