Last weekends Rally of the Midlands became a tale of what could have been for Manx Motorsport Youth Trust driver Andrew Leece (Onchan) and co-driver Rob Fagg (Port Erin).   Despite picking up valuable points in the Ka Championship, they have to look back at the missed opportunity of challenging for the victory.

The all-tarmac event, Round 3 of the Silverstone Tyres Ford Rallye Sport Ka Championship, took place over 18 stages covering almost 80 miles.   The fast open stages on the MIRA proving ground and the tight tricky stages on Merevale and Arbury Hall estates, proved an ideal battleground for the Ka competitors.

A quick fix and they were on their way again but the damage had been done to their victory challenge.

“We had problems in the opening stage with the throttling sticking on and we had to stop and fix that, then during second stage the car lost power and we had to stop again to resolve that problem.   It’s cost us four minutes, we will just carry on now and hope to pick up the pieces should the others have problems.” commented Leece at the end of stage 2.

Stage 3 and with the problems behind them they set about getting back on track. The first run through the 2-mile Merevale Estate stage saw Andrew post joint fastest time with championship leader John Hanson and fellow Junior Innes Clark.   Clark then went fastest and Leece second, just 1 second behind as the crews repeated the stage almost immediately.

Service followed and after a quick check over the car they were back out to tackle the same four stage but in reverse.   Over the stages they showed that they were not giving up despite their early problems and posted three fastest stage times and were just one second off making it four.

During second service a rear wheel bearing was changed as a pre-caution but apart from that all was well with the Mark Higgins Rallying Ka.   Two stages remained before the overnight halt and these were to be a repeat of the opening two of the day.   With no sign of the problems encountered first time round, they posted second fastest time on stage 9 and fastest on 10.

The end of day one saw Leece and Fagg lying in 59^th overall and 5^th Ka, they were 49 seconds behind the 4^th placed Ka of  Richard and Hugh Parry-Jones. With 22 stage miles on Sunday, closing this gap was a realistic target, but there would be no room for error.

With eight short stages ahead of them, the crews resumed the previous day’s battle for position.   Although not involved in the fight for first, the way Andrew was driving you wouldn’t have known it.   His battle though was for 4^th place, taking 13 seconds out of Parry-Jones over the opening two Bramcote stages and reducing the deficit to 36 seconds.   A further 5 seconds were taken on the first run through the 2.6 mile Arbury Hall stage, but on the second run they posted identical times, denting the Leece/Fagg challenge.

clean run through the pair could only take one second from their rivals, leaving them 5^th by just one second.

However rallying is not only decided by times on the stages and a two minute road penalty picked up by Parry-Jones earlier in the event was to prove costly for him, but beneficial for the Manx crew as this resulted in Leece/Fagg being promoted to 4^th Ka.

“We are both obviously disappointed not to have been involved in the fight for 1^st place but these things happen in rallying.   Andrew drove superbly during the weekend, when he could have settled for championship points he never gave up and posted eight fastest stage times, more than any other driver.” explained Rob at the finish in Nuneaton.

Tom Lunn won the event, 8 seconds ahead of John Hanson who now holds a 25-point lead over Lunn in the championship.   Leece currently lies in fourth place, 34 points behind Hanson who has yet to drop a score unlike Leece and Lunn.

Andrew and Rob will look back at the Rally of the Midlands and see it as a missed opportunity in an event on which they had hoped to battle for the win.   They are left pondering what might have been had they not experienced the problems on the opening stages of the event.

The next round of the championship is on home soil for the Manx pair and they will be hoping to set the pace and achieve a good result to boost their championship prospects.   The JCK Manx Trophy Rally is part of the Manx International Rally and takes place on the 30^th – 31^st July.

Andrew and Rob would like to thank the following for their continued support: Manx Motorsport Youth Trust, Mark Higgins Rallying, N A Fargher Newsagents, Forest Experience Rally School, Ken and Eve Leece, Motivation Engineering, W.E. Postlethwaite Ltd, Silverstone Tyres, Manx Gas, Integrated Capabilities, Aon (IOM) Ltd, www.rallycodriver.co.uk, and their service crew for this event, Andy, Richard & Jason.

Pictures courtesy of Richard Cooper (Cooper RallySport Photography)  and Paul Pearce (www.paulpearcerallyingimages.co.uk) 

Co-ordinator

Robert Fagg Rallying