HEART OF ENGLAND RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP – ROUND ONE AGBO STAGES AT WESTON PARK
SIBLING SUCCESS

The brother and sister pairing of Mark and Claire Lennox took maximum points on the opening round of this year's Championship in their Ford Escort.
“Grip was the only real problem, so we started on old wets,” said Lennox after taking a two second lead on stage one.

But in second place from a seeding of 71, was stage rally debutant Ashley Furlong with Pete Phennah in his Renault Clio.” My aim was just to get to the end so I wasn’t looking at my times,” he admitted.
There was a three way tie for third however, with Michael Bowle/Izzie Lawrence’s Renaulut Clio, Anthony/Kirun Deignan’s Skoda Fabia VRS and Matt Turner/Harry Walshaw’s Escort, all five seconds off the lead.

Both Lennox and Furlong started to edge away from the rest of the HOE contenders, but Bowle was struggling and lost two places over the next three stages “I have had a recurring handbrake problem, which I thought I had fixed. We struggled at the Hairpins and ran wide and then on stage six we retired with a broken CV,” said the Clio driver.

Turner was up third by the end of stage four, having changed to slicks.“We had a new suspension set up, so we struggled in the earlier tricky conditions and had some brake issues, but managed to stay on,” he explained.
Furlong managed to take a second back from Lennox’s growing lead on stage five, “we had a slight grassy moment, when it caught me out,” Lennox admitted.
The remaining four stages were plain sailing for the leaders, as their advantage grew to 17 seconds by the end of the final stage.

Turner had been taking time out of second placed Furlong, the gap however was still seven seconds into the final stage. “Apart from a couple of biggish slides it had gone well, until I eased off too much on the last stage. If I had checked my times I would have known to push on a bit,” said Furlong.

Turner had hit a bale quite hard on stage seven, but his final push was enough to net him second place, by just one second over Furlong.

Deignan’s early promise came to abrupt halt after six stages. His early third place had slipped a couple of places, before an off on stage seven. “The damage didn’t stop us, but a driveshaft went three corners later,” he explained.
Nigel Mee/Reg Davies spent most of the day playing catch up in the Impreza. “We had a big overshot on stage one and then nearly hit a car that stalled in front of us,” said Mee after holding fourth from stage five and topping Class E.
Behind them was a battle of the Fiesta’s with Matt/Adrian Walk’s 1400 duelling with Mark Gellatly/Ian Clapham’s R2. Walk held the advantage for most of the day, before Gellatly went two seconds up on stage six.

Walk sealed maximum points in Class A and fifth having retaken the R2 crew on the next stage, before they matched each other on the last two runs.

Owain/Glyn Thomas’ Peugeot 106 Rallye and Graham/ Jennifer Bartl’s Peugeot 206 completed the Class A contenders with Stuart/Catherine Hart’s Mini an early retirement.

In Class B Paul Callum Dickinson’s Citroen C2 followed Gellatly, with Emma Clarke co-driving Paul Kendrick Escort to third and Jason/Liam Farr’s Citroen Saxo fourth.

Apart from the top three, Simon Tuckman/Denzel Heeks’ Escort was the only other Class C starter and they were sidelined from ninth place on stage two.

Andrew Brinkley/Helena Mayall’s BMW M3 had been eighth on the opening stage but were in trouble from stage two. “We broke a TCA into the watersplash at speed, and missed a tree by about 18 inches. We got out again and then broke the other one,” he explained.
With Deignan and Bowle retiring too, Bill Douglas/Dave Tearl’s Volvo 244GL was the only Class D survivor, while in Class D Anthony North/Richard Mason’s Subaru followed Mee in a distant second.
Published by Peter Scherer for AWMMC Heart of England Rally Championship.

“We broke a track rod end on both stages two and three, then just drove to finish, which also gave us second overall in the Championship too,” said Piggott.

Published by Peter Scherer for AWMMC, Heart of England Rally Championship.