During the weekend Manx Motorsport Youth Trust supported Robert Fagg would finish his second Manx national rally out of three attempts. Contesting the Roush Manx Rally with George Collister, they brought the Motivation Engineering Escort MKII home in 46^th position.

The strategy for Leg 1 had been to push hard on the night stages, using local knowledge to gain as much time as possible in the darkness before the high powered cars fought back with quick times in the daylight.

The first four stages ran according to plan and smooth fast runs placed them in a strong position before entering the last stage of Leg 1, SS5 The Hope. Just over a mile into the stage George braked over a crest and on the damp road surface the car began to skid and despite trying to get it under control the front of the car made contact with a hedge. Luckily he was able to scrub off a lot of the speed before contact was made but the impact resulted in the spotlights being smashed and then headlights also being effected. This left them with poor visibility for the remaining 14 miles of the stage, but they managed to complete the stage with no further problems but losing around a minute due to the incident.

Back at the TT Grandstand for the overnight halt the crew would lie in 59^th position. This put them in a group of five local crews that would provide a good battle on leg 2 between them. But before then the service crew worked late into the night to ensure all was ok with the car for the battle.

The start of Leg 2 on Saturday sent the crews through two of George’s favourite stages, Glen Roy and West Baldwin. Smooth consistent runs over these two stages followed up by a steady run over the Kella stage showed a small overall improvement but it seemed they had maybe taken the later too steadily. Looking over the times they appeared to drop 30 seconds on their rivals.

Stages 9 and 10 saw George push harder, stage 10 running right past his house he could use his knowledge to push the car to the limits. The main problem was that while being fast in the tight twisting sections of the stage it also contained some very fast high-speed sections that they lost the time they had gained plus more.

At the second service of the day George reported a loss of oil pressure on left handers, although the crew could not find anything wrong and it was decided to continue while keeping an eye on this. Everything else with the car was fine and the worries at the start of the day surrounding the radiator had disappeared from everyone’s mind. The very next stage though the car’s performance on an uphill section had deteriorated from the morning run, and it was decided to change the plugs to try and cure this. On removal number four plug had broken down and with it replaced the car was back on full song and George put in a strong run over the Druidale stage but sat on the time control it was obvious not all was well with the motor.

With just one stage to go the second run through the Kella it was decided to go for it and as long as the engine held oil pressure they would continue. Five miles into the stage though the engine began to make a noise either George or Rob had heard before. George continued to push on though and the finish line provided relief for both. They then managed to get the car back to the rally finish on three cylinders and celebrated George’s first national rally with a finish.

Rob’s attentions though now turn to the Red Dragon rally which is the fourth round of the Ford Rallye Sport Ka Championship.

Thanks for continued support goes to : Motivation Engineering, Manx Motorsport Youth Trust, Q & S Motors, Integrated Capabilities, www.manx.net, Manx Telecom and www.rallycodriver.co.uk

Coordinator

RF Motorsport
13/05/03

Robert looks forward to home rally


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