Crash Bang Wallop

Anyone who has competed in any form of motor sport over a length of time is sure to have had a few dramas along the way, and I'm no exception.  Through my time in rallying I have been in a few "broken" cars and given plenty of work to the mechanics.  While looking back through my little black book of events I thought I'd share some of my bigger dramas.

My first few events only had spins but it was my 7th stage rally back on the 1998 Woodpecker event alongside Chris Hodson in his Mk2 Escort that I found the trees for the first time.  It was only a gentle slide into them (driver side) but we needed a bit of spectator help to get us going.  There was plenty there and a few weeks later I got hold of a video which showed plenty having problems there.

In 1999 the night before the Astra stages an accident meant that I didn't even start the event. This turned out to be the only time I went to hospital through rallying and only after getting home, and my dad took me to get my head cleaned.  I learnt a valuable lesson that night, as rally car seat belts can be a pain to get right so I actually wasn't wearing any as we were only heading a mile up a lane to where we were stopping.  Unfortunately the 205 I was in ended up on its roof and I bashed my head on the roll cage as we nearly came out the car.  From this night on I would at least have the lap belt on.  Still in 99 and the Somerset stages with Richard Sykes saw us going head on into a tree after a bump in a dip threw us off line.  Thankfully it was only a short stage so the stage maximum didn't affect us too much and we went onto win our class having won 11 of the 12 stages, my first class win.

My first full season was the following year with Sykes in the Peugeot cup and we started building up our speed until we got to round four the Red Dragon rally.  We found great pace and were leading going into stage 4, where disaster struck over the flying finish when we crashed heavily into a ditch.  To this day I believe I read the map (no pacenotes back then) right and there should have been more road to slow down between the flying finish  and the bend before the stop line.  At the time the atmosphere between Rich and myself wasn't great and wasn't helped by me undoing my belts and landing on him!!  He soon climbed over me to get out and we were later joined in the ditch by another car.  We got plenty of TV coverage from this as the crew were filming from the main road over looking the finish.

Two events later and heading too fast into a bend while trying to get a good start to the event we rolled four times into the trees and our Peugeot cup season was over.  Thankfully my rally career with Rich didn't end on such a low note, I had two more rallies and both went a lot better.  A 3rd in class on Rally GB that year and a one off Winter cup run out and a win a few years later

2001 and a high speed off with Barry Mayers got us more TV coverage. Lots of water before a square right saw us go straight on up a large mound and land on a wall.  The end of the year and a very unfortunate slide wide into a muddy section meant retirement for Mandy Twynham on the last stage of her first forest event.  A sad way to go out and the marshal who tried to help us wasn't too happy either when I shut the door on his hand.  The next event we did also ended in a ditch and Mandy found that kicking the car doesn't help!

2002 and one of my favourite events the Jim Clark Rally with Alan Doncaster came to an early end when we went off and got our Peugeot stuck on a wire fence.  It took us 20 minutes to cut the wire off that got wrapped around the wheel and brake.  We carried on for a short while and had a huge moment over a big jump which saw us heading backwards into a corner.  All good fun of cause.  The Red Kite rally in 2003 was very icy and twice we went off on the same corner.  I was with Olly Marshall in his 206 and we hit a pile of logs with the rear of the car first time through, then second time we didn't even get to the logs, sliding straight on.  Many others did the same that day as the event video proves and is very entertaining.

The 2003 Scottish rally has to go down as one of the biggest low points.  Two different rallies over two days alongside Stuart Jones in his 206 and we crashed out of both.  The first one was the bigger one when we ended up on our roof in a boggy ditch and had to climb out the back of the car.  The car was fixed overnight including the second front screen after the bonnet had come up the day before and smashed it as well.

Considering the amount of rallies we did together and the speed he had, I don't think we did too bad.  We did destroy a farmers fence in Ulster when we crashed out the rally and got a right telling off from his dad as we hadn't noted the road conditions well.  The following year we rearranged the rear of his dads Mitsubishi Evo 3 when we had a heavy impact with a tree on the Jim Clark rally.  The same year I was also sitting with Robin Bolt in the RERT Peugeot and we retired from the Plains rally with a blown engine.  This wasn't helped by rolling in the first stage.

With Ed Stallard in 2005 in the Mitsubishi challenge and we crashed into a ditch on round 2 and couldn't get out.  On the fourth round we went off over the flying finish but were able to keep going but on round 6 a late call from me lost us loads of time with a broken brake calliper.  We came into a hairpin way to fast and the car wouldn't come round.  This was all my fault, as I just didn't call it in time.

In 2006 alongside Chris Moore in the Fiesta Championship and we nearly threw the championship away on the last round when we went to fast into a corner crashing through to the stage on the other side.  Thankfully we were able to recover and won the championship when our main rival crashed out on the last stage.  My final season in 2007 alongside Elfyn Evans and a huge crash in the Fiesta saw us fly over another Fiesta that was parked up and land upside down in the trees.  It was big and I think it was here that I realised what family and friends go through as we vanished for 3 hours from the results and had no phone signal.  I have a disc with about 24 pics from this one roll.  All in all I think I have had my fair share of accidents and am happy to still be in one piece.