As one who is ever keen to diversify within (affordable) motorsport I recently got drawn into the world of historic road rallying. This attracts a variety of drivers, many of them mature in years, some of them seasoned campaigners and some of them new to the sport. Their navigators tend to be older and experienced, probably representing better quality than the average road rally entry. Quality navigation combines with less risk taking on the part of the drivers to provide some closely fought rallies.
Irrespective of the age of the crew, it is of course the age of the car that puts it into a historic category. To be specific, a historic car is one registered before 31/12/1967 and a post historic was registered between 1/1/1968 and 31/12/74. These cut off dates do not change, so you will not find a 1968 car drifting into historics next year, 1969 the year after that, etc. Most event organisers just have two classes, historic expert and historic novice, while the underlying championships operate the sub-classes behind the scenes.
Anyone campaigning a historic car will be concerned to avoid any unnecessary rough roads, and this can happen in one of two ways. Firstly, the organisers may let the cars do the whole route and restrict the use of whites. Secondly, part of the route may be identified as rough and, while the main body of the rally travel this section, the historic cars are diverted to compete on simpler tests elsewhere. Novices of any description who are wanting to enter some 'user-friendly' rallies would be advised to stick to rallies which belong to a good historic rally championship; these should provide smooth routes which most people are capable of finishing.
This year I started off by doing the Bruce Robinson in a TR5 convertible. As expected, this went like a train in a straight line, and was surprisingly good through the corners. The disadvantages were the lack of space in the cabin and the standard seats and belts. My next outing was on L oughborough's Morning Mist with Len Smith in a 1966 Mini Cooper 'S' with the traditional red and white colours. Cocooned in a full roll cage, wrap-around seats and full harness belts I felt very safe, and have signed up to do the rest of the Quinaire EMAMC Championship in this car.
From the championship results to date the most popular class is the post-historics up to 1600 c.c. The car to catch in this class is a very nimble Escort 1300 Sport, clashing with a Mini Cooper, an Avenger Tiger and a Triumph Spitfire. We are almost alo ne in our class and have set our sights on overall honours. Success could depend on playing our 'joker' on the correct round to get double points. Time will tell!
Richard Lumb