Early Days

It all started back in 1988. Various young members of Carlton and District Motor Club were engaged in the arcane ritual of building their first rally cars. One member, Pete Boddy, had gone down the sensible choice type of route of building a Ford Escort 1600 Sport, he wasn't too far off finishing either. Two other members, Andy Smedley and Ian Whitaker, had already toyed with the idea of welding up a Triumph Dolomite, and decided that that was a silly idea, so they replaced that with a sillier idea.

Prepare a 1700cc Morris Marina.

Fate then intervened when Andy was looking through "Motoring News" and noticed an interesting advert. "For Sale, Skoda Rally Car."

Andy and Ian went to look at this car, a "T" plater with a works spec 1100cc engine with 8 port head and twin 40's, 4-2-1 exhaust and a vanload of spares. After a brief test run, where the gearbox stripped 1st gear, the deal was done and the boys returned to Nottingham with a new toy to play with.

In the meantime, Mr Boddy is continuing the build of his Mk2 Escort. The cage is in, the firewall installed, front Ledas fitted, bucket seats in, Bilsteins on the back, and so on. The plan is that the first event will be the 1988 CDMC Silver Jubilee Stages Rally at Wymeswold. With about 6 weeks to go, Pete takes the car out with Ian Jones, another CDMC member, in the passenger seat. They end up with the car wedged in a culvert in 2 feet of water, not a straight panel on the vehicle. Apart from the bootlid.

The Escort is a write off. However, because of all the safety kit fitted - the occupants are unharmed, if a little damp.

Pete doesn't give up easily though, through building up the Escort, he has got to know a nice man by the name of Steve Stamenkovic, who deals in all sorts of rally car bits. He has the perfect vehicle that is sort of semi prepared, a road rally car with cage and a tweaked engine and willing to do a part exchange on the wreck of the Escort.

Pete was now the proud owner of a "Y" plate Skoda Estelle 120L!

The last few weeks before the "Silver Jubilee" were a blur as the car was fettled, resprayed white with contrasting blue stripes and generally tidied up.

It was then that Andy S came up with the name. "Look at this," he said, as he produced a sign written board for use in the service area.

It simply said. "Team Bouncing Czech"