Roger Albert Clark Rally - 17-19 Nov 06

Posted: November 30, 2006 5:08 PM

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McRae wins RAC for Stobart.
British rally legend Jimmy McRae has won the Roger Albert Clark Rally in a Stobart Motorsport Ford Escort Mk2 after a dramatic 27 stages of action over three days encompassing some of the UK’s very best rally routes.  

McRae and co-driver Andy Richardson led the event for the first two stages but only regained the lead after the final test was completed and after they had braved a challenging mix of weather.  

“It’s a fantastic feeling especially as we were playing catch-up for most of the rally,” said McRae. “We were a minute behind coming into the last day and before the final stage we were still 21 seconds behind and thought we wouldn’t do it.”  

The then rally leader, Jeremy Easson, suffered a throttle cable failure in the stage, meaning that McRae won the event by almost two minutes from Gareth Lloyd, with Ford Escorts making up the top 13 places on the event.  

“We were on three cylinders in the first two forest stages and had a puncture so we had our fair share of problems too,” said McRae.  

McRae has won numerous rallies around the world and is five-time British Rally Champion, taking the title in 1981-82, 1984 and 1987-88. The opportunity to contest the Roger Albert Clark Rally only came about after Eddie Stobart Ltd MD William Stobart had to pull out due to business commitments.  

 “A big thank you to William. He was so busy with his business that he couldn’t drive on this event, so I hope his business continues to flourish!” said McRae.  

The Stobart Motorsport liveried Prepfab-prepared Escort was the fastest car over ten stages of the event, including all bar two on the final day.  

“I didn’t win the old RAC Rally, it is one event I would have loved to win, but this is a pretty good substitute,” said McRae. “We had three days which have been run faultlessly, we had snow in Scotland, rain on stages, dry stages and rough stages, it’s been a fantastic event.”  

Stobart Motorsport are next out in rally action at the start of December with Wales Rally GB, the final round of both the FIA World Rally Championship and the Tesco 99 Octane MSA British Rally Championship.  

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Dublin driver John Reid with Frank Richer took 2nd overall in the open class.

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Full Results:
Roger Albert Clark Rally

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PRE EVENT NEWS

• Reg Britton and Gerry Buckley to use ex-John Lyons Ford Escort RS1800

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15/11/06
Reg Britton and Gerry Buckley to use ex-John Lyons Ford Escort RS1800
On the weekend of November 18th, 19th & 20th next Reg Britton and Gerry Buckley will compete on the 2006 Roger Albert Clark Rally in the forests of Northern England and Southern Scotland.

The event has a historic format catering for competing cars in production before 1981 and has been in existence since 2004 in honour of the late great Ford Works Driver Roger Clark and is designed along the old RAC Rally format and stages.

The car they will use is the ex-John Lyons Ford Escort RS1800 that won The Donegal International Rally in 1981 & 1982. OIJ 323 is now owned by Reg Britton and has been driven to numerous successes by him on both sealed and loose surfaces over the last 15 years. They will compete in Class D5 and it is out of this class that both the 2004 event Winner Stig Blomquist and 2005 event Winner Mark Higgins emerged.

The 2006 Roger Albert Clark Rally will return to Harrogate in North Yorkshire, one of the RAC Rally’s inspirational start venues for the RAC Rally of years ago. The move to Harrogate was prompted by the inclusion this year of the Yorkshire forests. The event will be based from the ‘Yorkshire Event Centre’ at the Great Yorkshire Showground.

The format of the event has also changed for 2006 with scrutineering taking place in the Event Centre exhibition halls during the afternoon and evening of Friday 17th November. The event will start at 08:00 on Saturday the 18th November with the cars doing two stages within the showground before heading into the Dalby complex for six more stages prior to service in Scarborough. Crews will then head out to the now traditional blast around Croft race circuit and onto Greystoke for a night Stage before an overnight halt in Carlisle.

Sunday sees the main event start at 07:00 and head north into the Scottish forests. Seven stages follow in Ae, Castle O’er and Twiglees, to name just three with the rally returning to Carlisle for an earlier than usual finish of 17:00.

Monday morning and the early starts continue with an 06:30 run out of Carlisle to Kershope. Six stages in Keilder totaling over 60 miles are followed by another two runs around Croft before the finish back at the Great Yorkshire Showground in Harrogate at 18:30.

Overall stage mileage is 200 miles with the road mileage totaling 675 miles.

Roger Albert Clark Rally