High Wycombe & District Motor Club and Windsor Car Club Ltd

Swan '96 Rally

14th/15th September 1996

Home win for Kingsley & PRAR

Starting from Wycombe airpark the route dived out into the narrow lanes of the Chilterns, popularly known as the Chiltern Trenches due to their high earthbanks. The route took in many roads unused for quite a while, the triangle at Davenportport Wood being the first of many. Roger Davidson (CoC) made sure that the route got straight down to business, with a string of shortish sections with straight forwards navigation (via map references and grid lines for example). First fallers from the recognised crews were Fiona Casey/Nigel Mollet, missing the triangle at Davenport Wood. Nigel struggled against mal de nav all night, cursing their decision to compete rather than marshal.

TC5, at the end of the Gussetts Wood section saw the first penalties for the experts. Kingsley/PRAR, Steve Cole/Bob Blows and Chris Pratt/Nick Arden maintained their clean sheets, pulling ahead. The next section took in the motorway width white at Sliding Hill, and proved clean able by all. The following sections proved more confusing. Despite a penalty clause in the regulations, many people had not brought their marshals with them, as a result some sections had to be joined together. The confusion over where time controls were and weren't located caused many of the novice crews trouble. But as usual the experts took it all in their stride and made it to MTC11 unscaythed. Pratt/Arden were unable to maintain the pace, dropping two minutes and two places.

A bit of jostling on the next two sections allowed them to move back into second place as Cole/Blows dropped 8 minutes negotiating an avoids section and Cath Woodman/Martin Smith dropped a codeboard on the Heron's Farm white. This board was to catch out a number of crews, eventual winners Kingsley/PRAR reported that they had gone back to look for it, having correctly deduced that there was one there somewhere! A quick circuit of the regraded Trumpletts Farm white brought crews in to Cheivley for a very quick petrol halt. The standings at this point were:

 1 Kingsley/PRAR                  Clean
 2 Pratt/Arden                   3 mins
=3 Cole/Blows                    8 mins
=3 Gavin Rogers/Carrie Parsons   8 mins
 5 Rodgers/Speller              16 mins

As for so many this was short lived, and by TC31 the navigation had proved too much and they dropped down the order. With many crews missing codeboards Kingsley/PRAR moved up into first place and consolidated it. Robinson/Nugent were struggling to make up for a missed 'board early in the first half, but by maintaining a clean run, then managed to lie fifth entering the last timecard. The route by now had moved back onto map 175, and was using the narrow and mucky roads in the bottom left corner. Trevor Joel/John Upham were forced to retire at this point, the twisty roads proving too much for Upham's dinner. Despite the lack of marshals the sections were tight and twisty enough to cause people to drop time. The navigation was not difficult, but with lots of map references to plot the navigators were having to work very hard indeed.

Rogers/Parsons clung onto second as the route came to the penultimate control. The handout was to prove to be the final sting in the tail, a circular herringbone! Guesswork saw Kingsley/PRAR clean the section, having struggled to make the handout fit. Similarly Robinson/Nugent managed to make it in within OTL. Rogers/Parsons would also have been in had they not got a wrong approach, everybody else slipped into OTL at this point, having been wavering on the brink for the final few sections. These fails saw Woodman/Smith and Rodgers/Speller, as well as Rogers/Parsons, tumble. Robinson/Nugent were thus able to snatch second by dint of fast accurate plotting and slotting.

With almost everybody OTL by the end the Swan had proved to be a very tough rally, perhaps too tough for next year's championships. Much like Formula 1, lead changes on Road Rallies have become a bit rare locally, and it does make a change to be able to report about the lead changing and people dropping minutes and recovering. Probably the toughest event since last year's Twister Rally, but also one of the more satisfying.

PRAR

Final Results:

 1 Doug Kingsley/PRAR                   Nova GTE        26m
 2 Doug Robinson/Rob Nugent             Ford Capri      51m
 3 Colin Rodger/Sue Speller             205 GTi    1F   52m
 4 Cath Woodman/Martin Smith            Nova GTE   1F   58m
 5 Gavin Rogers/Carrie Parsons          Escort     1F   71m
 6 Chris Pratt/Nick Arden               205        1F  109m
 7 Fiona Casey/Nigel Mollet             Astra      3F  211m
 8 Jon Barber/Les Parsons               Sierra     5F  327m
 9 Mark Greenwoord/Alan Beard           Astra     10F  321m
10 Dave Browell/Mark Browell            Mini      15F  743m
11 Duncan Irvine/Damian Irvine          Mini      24F 1063m