Lepley finally takes BHRC win

It has taken all year and some painful non-finishes, but George Lepley and Dafydd Evans finally got their Mitsubishi Galant VR4 to the finish of a round of the British Historic Rally Championship and duly won the Trackrod Historic Cup by more than half a minute.

For the sixth and final round of the season, it was back onto the gravel of glorious Yorkshire stages like Dalby and Gale Rigg. In particular, 11 miles in Dalby in the darkness of Friday was a big wake up call, and Lepley emerged with a lead that he took all the way to the finish back in Filey.

Three times in the early season the Galant broke, but this time it all hung together and the talented Lepley did the rest. “It’s just great to finally get to the finish,” said Lepley. “It’s taken a lot of hard work to get here,” he added. Of course, the sister car of Baz Jordan had enjoyed much greater reliability and won the overall BHRC title with a round to run.

In terms of the two-wheel drive contest, Matt Edwards and Sion Williams had an initial run in the car of Richard Jordan that Edwards will use on the Roger Albert Clark rally in November. Though he’d not rallied an Escort Mk2 on gravel for a decade, Edwards was quickly back in the groove and delivered a predictably strong performance.

Just back from Edwards in third was enough to confirm Dan Mennell and John Roberts as BHRC Category 3 champions in their Escort Mk2. The local charger managed to dovetail contesting the event with being best man at a wedding just a few miles away and had an absolute ball in the forests where he grew up watching rally cars.

Ben Friend and Cliff Simmons couldn’t repeat last year’s victory but were a strong fourth while another impressive performance came from locals Matt Stroud and Josh Carr who belied Stroud’s relative lack of experience to take fifth in their Escort Mk2.

Notable class winners included Tim Pearcey and Andy Boswell who took Category 2 in their Ford Escort Mk1 while Ed Abbott and Tom Bishop claimed a Category 2 class victory in their glorious but unusual Jaguar XJS.