Photo courtesy of Phil Taylor
Saturday 3rd June saw the crews leave Builth Wells to tackle the dry dusty stages of mid-Wales for round 4 of the 2017 Mintex MSA British Historic Rally Championship.
“The rally has a reputation as being very hard on cars – it’s usually hot, dry and dusty and the stages are generally very fast,” explained Phil.
“Unusually for us we hit problems on the approach to stage 1 – the gearbox kept jumping out of first gear and the oil pressure dropped right off.”
“We thought we might have to drop out before the start but decided to gamble on pushing on,” said Phil. “We were the quickest Category 1 car through stage 1 despite only three gears and the oil pressure was manageable. We pushed on through the next two stages and arrived back at service with a 90 second lead in Category 1.”
“The RSR Historic Engineering crew fixed the oil pressure and we went back out for the afternoon run.”
“There was a bit more drama when a car went off and the ensuing fire meant that the stage was cancelled. “
“And then there was even more late drama just before the final stage of the day,” explained Phil. “The car would not start and I had to short circuit the starter motor with a spanner and after nearly electrocuting myself, the engine roared into life and we just made the stage start without losing any time.”
“The car flew through the last stage and we ended up winning our class and Category 1 for the fourth time in a row with only three gears! A fantastic result after all the challenges of the day and a testament to the fantastic quality of the preparation by RSR Historic Engineering!”