The Mini will be making an appearance on the Fat Albert stages at the end of July with Rob driving and Darren in the co-pilot seat
The car has gone through some major improvement, A new more powerful engine and straight cut gearbox and limited slip diff. Looking forward to the event looks like there may be some serious competition.
Leighrallying took top honors at the Somerset rally.
The Somerset rally saw the service crew work hard to keep the Proton on the road, the rally was one of the roughest events that they could remember.
The first two stages went without problems and they pulled a 2 second lead, but from then on the rally got tough, on the third stage the front hub nut came loose with 4 miles of stage to go. This left Darren with very little brakes, but still managed to set an equal time and still lead by two seconds.
The next two stages were run up Porlock Hill a 3.5 mile tarmac stage. After both runs they had pulled another 5 seconds clear of the chasing pack, the crew had managed to set a blistering time up the hill 19th quickest on both runs and on the second run set a new 1400 record of 3.51. See in-car film at bottom. In the process of setting that time the car had broken a engine mount and a quick fix was carried out. Stage 6 saw the crew lose 1 second in a very short stage, but the next stage saw the guys struggle with only 2 mile in, a brake pipe ripped off leaving the car with no brakes at all, and still 5 miles to run. Thinking the worst, that they were losing time, they pushed as hard as they dare, only to find that they had only lost 2 seconds to the best time set and that their main competitor had not completed the stage.
The service crew worked wonders in auxiliary service managing to blank off the broken pipe, bleed the brake system, replace the front tires remove and replace the fuel pump and fill if with fuel in less than 20 minutes.
The next two stages were a bit of a struggle only having three brakes and a handbrake that didn't really work but they were still managed to set fastest in class.
At main service the car's brakes were repaired and another engine mount was replaced, it was starting to get really expensive this rally.
With 3 stages to go and a lead of 20 seconds the lads only needed to hold station and not take any risks, they only needed to get the car home and take the win.
With no dramas to report they made it back in one piece and had won the class by 18 seconds and were an amazing 24th overall.
