RallySport Magazine November 2016

More documents

Recommendations

Info

FEATURE: FRANK KELLY “rally over” thing to well. Then I heard about a yellow Mk2 for sale at reasonable money. I rang about it, drove it for 200 yards and bought it. Yet again some major offs, but I loved this car, the fun was back. We changed the colour and she became the first “baby blue”. In 2005 some of the locals talked me into going down south to do the Irish Forest Championship, and boy was it good craic. John Shelvin sat with me and did a great job, but made it clear that he couldn’t afford to do the whole season. We got as far as the fourth round and were going well, but John had to pull out and that seemed to be that. The day before the fourth round, Greg Shinnors, the Clerk Of Course of the Moonraker, rang to see why I hadn’t entered. I told him the story and he replied: “Get your butt down here Kelly, I will have a navigator ready to go!!”. That’s how I met Liam Brennan from Cork. I couldn’t understand a word he said between stages, but his notes were perfect and we hit it off immediately. We did the rest of the season together and became 2WD forest champions. In 2006 “baby blue” was replaced “All I had to do was finish in the top 12 in 2WD, but like a dipstick I went off while battling for the lead ....” with “Tarzan” a white Pinto Mk2. I fitted a 2-litre 16-valve Mountune engine and went back south again with Liam on the notes. The season went great until the last round. All I had to do was finish in the top 12 2WD, but like a dipstick I went off while battling with Seamus O’Connell for the 2WD lead. Championship lost, but no one to blame but myself. 2007 went the same way, except I kept it on the road on the last round and regained the 2WD title. In 2008 a change was needed. After talking with Seamus and Adrian Hetherington we all headed for the BTRDA Silverstar Championship, based mostly in the Welsh forests, and so “the reindeers were on tour”, Liam couldn’t take the time off work so Aiden Friel, who had sat on a few occasions, committed to the full season. The first round went well and we scored top points. We missed the second round when I fell ill with meningitis and I thought the season was over. Luckily I had recovered sufficiently for me to return to the third round in Humberside. We were in a frantic battle all day for the lead and went into the last nine mile stage two seconds down. The stage went great right up to half a mile from the finish line when the gearbox blew up. We pushed her over the finish line but went OTL. To cap it all, my main competition had wrung a half shaft and didn’t finish either. At this point it didn’t look good, but they are great rallies over there, so we went to Somerset anyway. We won that one and things went great for the next three rallies, taking maximum points on all of them. Unfortunately, I became unstuck in the Woodpecker were we rolled heavily on the second stage (sound familiar??). It had been 13 months since I had been on my roof and that was a record for me. It was a big rush to get the car ready for the next round, but once again Conor and Gary helped pull it all together. Maximum points on the 38 | RALLYSPORT MAGAZINE - NOVEMBER <strong>2016</strong>
last two rounds, gave us a total of six maximum scores and we became BTRDA Silverstar Champions. That Christmas Paul Hughes gave me first bite at buying his 2-litre Duratec engined Mk2. A deal was done and Baby Blue 2 was in the garage getting the forest treatment! Tarzan was sold to a guy in London and we were ready for the new season. For 2009 I decided to take on the Scottish stages and signed up for the Scottish Rally Championship. We had a season long battle with the legend that is Steve Bannister. Our biggest problem was punctures. On average we had two punctures per rally! I lost count of the times we were in the lead only to pick up a puncture. Sometimes we lost the rim as well and on one occasion, on the Speyside Stages, we lost tyre, rim and brake calliper! By the time I worked out that I couldn’t drive sideways without getting a puncture it was too late and we finished second overall in the 2WD championship. I went back for another crack in 2010, but by mid season the ferry costs had gone up so much it wasn’t affordable anymore. Driving the car straight wasn’t suiting me either, and when I’d get frustrated and go sideways I picked up punctures again! We cut the season short and did some of our local forest events to finish off the year.” Join us next month to see how Frank’s story unfolds. NOVEMBER <strong>2016</strong> - RALLYSPORT MAGAZINE | 39
Page 1 and 2: Issue #7 - November 2016 PADDON to
Page 3 and 4: A ‘RALLY’ GOOD ONE RALLYSPORT M
Page 5 and 6: CONTENTS - #7 NOVEMBER 2016 FEATURE
Page 7 and 8: NEWS@RALLYSPORTMAG.COM.AU VW’S SH
Page 9 and 10: FIESTA SERIES TAKING SHAPE The Fies
Page 11 and 12: LUCKY ESCAPE FOR EVO CREW New Zeala
Page 13 and 14: NOVEMBER 2016 - RALLYSPORT MAGAZINE
Page 15 and 16: WRC 6 GAME REVIEW BE THE NEXT SEB!
Page 17 and 18: got a proven track record building
Page 19 and 20: h e . Zealand ….” This was well
Page 21 and 22: “The old adage ‘Win on Sunday,
Page 23 and 24: emote nature of the events we have
Page 25 and 26: BEST In 2013, Carsguide editor Paul
Page 27 and 28: 7. Neal Bates - Australian Rally Ch
Page 29 and 30: and inspiration to you so far in yo
Page 31 and 32: The TTE Celica was driven by nine w
Page 33 and 34: R-L: Stuart Bowes, Neal Bates, Angu
Page 35 and 36: Owning the ex-factory Toyota is a d
Page 37: and as I couldn’t wait to start r
Page 41 and 42: Matt Close left the field in his wa
Page 43 and 44: Glenn Inkster and Spencer Winn took
Page 45 and 46: To the winners, the spoils. The rel
Page 47 and 48: There were no technical novelties a
Page 49 and 50: HAYDEN PADDON COLUMN MORE PROGRESS
Page 51 and 52: Five wins from five events for Indi
Page 53 and 54: the maximum permitted number of tim
Page 55 and 56: NEWS ABBLITT TAKES TASSIE TITLE The
Page 57 and 58: Italy’s Alex Fiorio pushes his La
Page 59 and 60: (Mitsubishi) were fourth in their o
Page 61 and 62: AP4 REGS STILL A WORK IN PROGRESS T
Page 63 and 64: NOVEMBER 2016 - RALLYSPORT MAGAZINE
Page 65 and 66: 2016 Rally Australia preview THE LA
Page 67 and 68: BIG PUSH ani Sordo, look to be the
Page 69 and 70: RALLY AUSTRALIA - WRC ENTRY LIST EN
Page 71 and 72: RALLY AUSTRALIA - NSWRC ENTRY LIST
Page 73 and 74: CARLOS IS ON A ROLL Along with visi
Page 75 and 76: an interview and I will try to make
Page 77 and 78: ING EAST BANK D RSH ELTE DAYRSHIREP
Page 79 and 80: ND 2017 MH: How does driving the 20

RallySport Magazine November 2016

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?