03 Oct 07
Brands Hatch completed, Alona was getting the hang of the watches. This was the first time she'd done an event like this, but already she'd developed a system of noting times at various circuit landmarks so we could track our progress on the timed laps. Then to the new track at Mercedes-Benz World at Brooklands along with a blast up the old Test Hill, followed by the Longcross military test track in Surrey for a timed stage.
Rural Surrey is nowadays plagued with over-cautious speed limits, but we knew the roads would open up once out of the south-east and on our way to Coombe Abbey, the hotel outside Coventry that would form the rally base for the next few days. We'd watched the racing category at Brands Hatch, seen Richard Lloyd once again in his Camaro, marvelled at the madness of John Grant in his Chevron B16 - a full-on, low-slung, mid-engined sports-racing car - who was going to do all the stages however lumpy.
Already we'd sensed the camaraderie that goes with this event. It's organised by Fred Gallagher (past co-driver with Tony Pond) and Alec Poole (regular works BMC racer). And many of the competition participants have been racing for a long time, such as 911 exponent Nick Faure and rally ace Tony Fall, co-driven here by Yvonne Mehta whose late husband, Shekhar, was the king of the East African Safari rally.
The variety of cars was fantastic, with bright green Roesch Talbots from the 1930s proving as fast on the track as much newer machinery, a Frazer Nash powersliding everywhere, a monstrously fast Mini Cooper driven by one Harvey Death, several Aston Martins and delicious Ferraris from Dino to 250GT Tour de France.
