This is the story of my competition career so far: -

My first event was the Carfax Stages in 1991. Co-driving for my brother this was our first rally in our newly built Vauxhall Chevette HS 2300. The rally provided a steep learning curve, however things went well with no major problems, other than an overheating engine and we managed to move up from our seeded position of 55 to finish the rally in 17th place.

Driver: Peter Cadle
Car: Vauxhall Chevette HS 2300
Events: 4
Best Result: 17th overall - Carfax Stages, Longcross, 1991.

March 1992 was to prove a low point in my rally career when, after putting in some fast stage times against much more powerful machinery, we had a very high speed roll on the Avon Park stages near Bouremouth and totally destroyed the yellow Chevette!

A new shell was purchased, this time an HSR spec version of the Chevette was to be built. However this project was never completed and I moved on to co-driving for other drivers. Pete is now a Glider Pilot, a sport which he says is much cheaper than running a rally car!

I was then asked by Peter Collier to navigate for him on historic road rally events in his 1960 Austin A40 and Triumph 2000 works replica. We had a successful few years and did a couple of stage rallies as well. The photo on the right is from the Miller Oils Rally Brittania 1995.

Driver: Peter Collier
Car: Austin A40 & Triumph 2000
Events: 16
Best Result: 9th overall on Tour of Anglesey 1997.
Championship: 1996 HRCR Historic Rally Championship best novice navigator.

In 1997 Matt Humphris asked me to co-drive for him on the British National Rally Championship. We have competed successfully in this championship since then and in 2002 became class A5 (for Group A cars up to 1400cc) National Champions. This continues to be my regular co-drive and a new Kit-Car specification Micra is currently being built for 2006.

Driver: Matt Humphris
Car: Nissan Micra Group A
Events: 21
Best Result: Scottish National Trophy Rally 2000 - 12th overall, 1st in class.
Championship: 2002 British National Champions in Class A5.

When his regular co-driver was unable to compete on a rally Dick Mauger asked me to co-drive for him. I have competed on 4 events with him and achieved 3 top-10 finishes.

Driver: Dick Mauger
Cars: Escort Cosworth & Escort WRC
Events: 4
Best Result: 3rd overall Bomb-Along Stages 2002.

I have also competed on 3 one-off events for other drivers as a stand-in when their regular co-driver could not make the event. These are:-

Andy Corner, Peugeot 205 GTi 1.9 on Weston Park Stages 2002, finishing 9th overall, 2nd in class.

Clive Godsell, Alfa Romeo GT 1600 on Targa Rusticana 1997.

Kevin Pead, Escort RS 2.1 on Cadwell Park Stages 2003, where we finished 41st overall, 3rd in class.

In the 15 years that I have been competing as a Rally Navigator I have had an enjoyable and successful time, managing 2 National Championship class wins (1996 & 2002) and finished 1st in class 7 times, 2nd 8 times and 3rd on 3 occasions, including 5 top-ten finishes.

Competing on major national championship multi-venue rallies has been a great experience and requires a lot more work from the navigator than airfield events. I would encourage competitors to try to move on from single-venue events and have a go at some multi-venue rallies. Although the cost can be double that of an airfield based rally I would rather do fewer large events than a lot of smaller ones.

On multi-venue rallies you are on-the-go for much more of the time. Stages can be a lot longer, often 12-14 miles, with the longest I have done clocking in at a huge 30-mile forest stage, on Pace Notes, which is a real experience! The use of Pace Notes also adds to the challenge for the navigator as the delivery and timing required to correctly read them takes a great deal of practice to get right, as does not loosing your place in them!

You can sometimes be required to navigate for an hour or more at a time just to get from a service halt to the stage start! A days rallying can cover over 100 stages miles and as many road miles, all with only perhaps three 20-minute service halts. So in 8 or 9 hours of rallying you may spend 7 or 8 hours in the car. Compare that with barely more than an hour to an hour-and-a-half on a club event and you can see that you are getting much more for your money. With events of this duration and with between 2 and 5 stages run between service halts, combined with limited servicing, reliability of the car becomes even more important.

In rallying the standard of preparation of the car is of paramount importance and given the cost of competing these days time spent on preparation is time well spent. Although mechanical failures are an inevitable part of the sport a lot can be done to improve reliability. I have been lucky that, during my career, reliability has not been a major issue. I have competed with 7 drivers in 10 different cars and in all that time have only retired from 4 rallies due to mechanical problems and this has got to be a record!