Twenty Three year old Manxman George Collister (Grenaby) won the final round of the 2004 Kumho Clubman Championship, the Bulldog Clubman’s Rally, but this was not enough for the Manx Motorsport Youth Trust recipient to claim the overall title.

Q&S Motor’s mechanic Collister was pipped for the title by one point by early season favourite, Yorkshire man Tim Pearcey, who won the opening two rounds of the series.   His second place on the event was enough to take the trophy and the prize of free entries to the 2005 Kumho National Championship back to Yorkshire.

It was a late start for the clubman crews on Saturday with Collister and fellow trust recipient Integrated Capabilities / Manx Gas backed co-driver Rob Fagg (Port Erin), the first registered championship competitors, leaving the start in Dolgellau at 12:58pm.   Drama was to unfold even before the young Manx duo had reached the start of the first stage though.   While waiting to turn in to the forest track a following car had not realised the Indigo Commercial Properties Ford MKII Escort had stopped.   The car made contact with the back of the MKII but luckily enough there was no damage and they were able to continue onto the opening stage.   Fortunately the following car happened to be the Collister Rallying management vehicle and George’s road car back on the Isle of Man.   What are the chances?
 

“James (Potter) is not too far ahead of us and I think we can catch him and hopefully he can keep ahead of Tim (Pearcey).   This would be enough to give us the title, but there are three stages to go yet and the next is 12 miles, anything can happen.” commented George.

He could not have been more right and over that 12 mile Gartheiniog stage the standings would change drastically.   Collister posted his second fastest stage time by just under 10 seconds over McDowall who moved ahead Pearcey and in the process to second place with the retirement of Potter on the stage.

Inside the Motivation Engineering powered MKII Escort the crew did not know the situation behind them and decided to attack Bwlch Main as they had done the previous three.   They would be second fastest to the charging McDowall though but only by the smallest of margins 0.4 of a second.   The good news though was that Pearcey dropped a further ten seconds to McDowall.

The scene was set; it was all down to the final 9 miles to decide the championship.   Collister held a comfortable 40 second lead over McDowall and knew as long as he kept it clean he would win the round but the championship would not be certain.   McDowall had a 14.4 second gap over the chasing Pearcey who needed second place, Pearcey had to push and that he did, fastest over the final stage, but was it enough.   He had managed to pull back 17.6 seconds to secure second place by 3.2 seconds, and the title was his.

“I have done all I could today, I came here knowing I had to win the round to have a chance of the title and that is what I have done.” explained George, “Congratulations to Tim, it has been a great fight and he has done enough to beat me.   It has been good to have four great crews fight the title out over the last round, well done to Allan and Steve as well for making it so.”

There was a little joy for the Collister Rallying team though with Rob winning the co-drivers title on a tie-break from Mick Johnson, co-driver to Tim Pearcey.
 

“We came away this year to learn the stages and aimed for a top 5 in the championship.   For me to win the title and George to come so close is a great achievement for the whole team”, a delighted Rob told us, “I feel for George as he has driven so well this year and I really felt he deserved it, but I think he has given more than a good account of himself this year.   The whole team and sponsors have been fantastic and it is thanks to them that we have been able to compete at this level.”

 2004 Kumho Clubman Champion Co-driver - Rob Fagg

George and Rob will look now forward to the last local rally of the year, the Christmas Stages at the disused Jurby Airfield where I am sure they will go and enjoy themselves after a pressure fuelled season.

George and Rob would like to thank the following for there support in their 2004 Championship: Manx Motorsport Youth Trust, Q&S Motors, Reynolds and Turner, Integrated Capabilities, Indigo Commercial Properties Ltd, Motivation Engineering, A.V. Craine & Sons, Manx Gas, Aon (IOM) Ltd, Manx Telecom, www.manx.net, DUKE Video, www.mexperience.com – Your Mexico Travel Centre Online, Sign and Design, Cronk Aashen Farm Campsite and the service crew who we could not do without (Graham Collister, David Craine, Ian Bailey, Cex Walker, Carl Bennet and Paul Craine)


Co-ordinator
Robert Fagg Rallying
26/10/2004