How a new 'old' challenge is capturing the spirit of British rallying lore

Next year will be the 30th anniversary of Colin McRae famously winning the 1995 RAC Rally to become Britain’s first world rally champion in front of an estimated two million fans stage-side, propelling the sport to incredible heights in the UK. McRae’s exploits, coupled with the nature of the RAC Rally – thanks to the unique gravel challenges posed by famed Welsh stages such as Crychan, Myherin, Hafren and Sweet Lamb – added to the RAC’s standing as a revered event.

Sadly, the original RAC Rally (1932-97), which morphed into Rally of Great Britain and latterly Rally GB (1998-2019), no longer exists – the UK lost its place on the WRC calendar after 2019. But the event’s beating heart and its bespoke challenge live on through the Roger Albert Clark Rally – named after the 1972/1976 winner – which aims to encapsulate the charm of the original RAC through its 350-mile, five-day marathon for historic cars.

Last November represented a milestone for the ‘new’ RAC, which first ran in 2004. It hit new heights in popularity, with enthusiasts flocking to the stages in their droves and thousands watching online as 155 crews gathered, including five-time WRC winner Kris Meeke and rising star Oliver Solberg.

Among those trying to conquer this event was former Formula 1 pundit and accomplished rally driver Tony Jardine. He invited Autosport to join him to live the trials and tribulations of trying to overcome arguably the UK’s toughest rally, piloting a stunning 1973 Chrysler Avenger prepared by the TradOak Rally Team. Jardine was partnered by experienced co-driver Allan Harryman, son of the legendary Terry Harryman, Ari Vatanen’s former co-driver.

Jardine’s association and passion for rallying goes all the way back to 1975, when he drove a Datsun to eighth in the Kuwait International Rally while working as an art teacher in the Middle East. Jardine has become a regular, and competed on the original RAC and Rally GB, but last year’s Roger Albert Clark Rally was an altogether different challenge.

“It is the toughest RAC I’ve been on – I’ve done 27 and I have done some big events, but I think this is the toughest,” reckons Jardine. His words are no exaggeration. The extent of the challenge is only truly realised when the RAC’s itinerary is mapped out and put into context.

Jardine says the 2023 RAC Rally was the toughest he's encountered

Photo by: Andrew Scott

A standard WRC event is usually contested over four days, with crews navigating approximately 300 stage kilometres (200 miles). The RAC, held every two years, demands that crews cover 150 miles more than a WRC event across five days. The rally features stages in Wales, Scotland and England, beginning in Carmarthen and ending in Carlisle.

This epic journey is completed by ageing and at times fragile classics. The cast featured a plethora of throaty Ford Escort Mk2s (including entries driven by Solberg, Meeke and 2022 British champion Osian Pryce), a screaming Lancia Stratos piloted by Seb Perez, Chris Ingram in his beautifully presented Triumph TR7, plus a smattering of Porsches.

This enormous dose of nostalgia could from the outside be seen as targeting a certain demographic but, if anything, the younger drivers and fans were perhaps more excited and attracted to this rally. Among those was one of the WRC’s brightest young talents in the form of Solberg.

The Avenger’s saviour on this occasion was a bottle of Lucozade and Harryman’s honed engineering skills. In order to limp the car back to the team’s mechanics, Harryman displayed how valuable it is to carry cable ties and energy drinks

“First of all, it is fantastic to be back in Wales,” grins Solberg. “I have missed going rallying here and it has always been a dream. My grandfather did the RAC back in the 1970s and there are a lot of special memories from then with Lancia Stratos and the Volvos and the Toyotas.

“It’s the heritage of rallying. I love the Ford Escorts, it has proper revs and there are no buttons, so you just put it in first and go. That part is easier, but driving it is much more difficult. It brings a completely different challenge, which I like.”

If anyone needed reminding of the passion for rallying in Wales, then the hordes of fans that lined the streets of Carmarthen for the ceremonial start under lights emphasised how this region has been starved of top-level competition in recent years.

But as Autosport trekked into the Crychan forest to go full ‘bobble-hatter’ to watch the action the following morning, the challenge this rally poses became all too real. The Avenger was missing: less than two miles into the stage, Jardine’s car had hit trouble.

Perez Stratos missed out on a podium at the last, but thrilled fans who make the trek out to the forest stages

Photo by: Paul Lawrence

“It was probably one of my shortest ever rallies, we just lost power and then the car started to sound like an old tractor,” explains Jardine. “It was a heck of a noise and eventually we ground to a halt and it didn’t look good. I thought the engine had totally gone. But it was a problem with cylinder one and it had actually blown out the whole spark plug and broken part of it.”

Jardine wasn’t the only driver to suffer engine trouble, as Meeke’s Castrol-liveried Escort cried enough at the end of stage six while in the lead, after dicing with Solberg and Pryce at the top of the times.

“To say I’m disappointed would be an understatement,” said Meeke. “Huge thanks for all the effort from Wales Motorsport to make this event a reality and again to all my sponsors that made it possible. We will be back!”

Meeke’s words summed up the passion that ignited around the event, with talk of a comeback in 2025. Luckily for Jardine, he didn’t have to wait that long. The team were not willing to give up, and the Avenger was recovered before heading back to Carmarthen for a repair in a pub car park – the Boars Head, to be precise.

This, as they say, is rallying and evidence that the spirit of the original RAC is very much alive and kicking. The squad, led by team manager and ex-M-Sport engineer Phil Bradshaw, aided by the lights from pub benches, worked their magic to revive the Avenger. The rally was back on.

But the RAC continued to bite as more and more competitors fell by the wayside. While Solberg stormed into a healthy lead by dancing his Escort through the rolling Welsh hills that envelope Sweet Lamb, one of rallying’s most revered stages, the infamous ribbon of gravel took its toll on the Avenger. This time the clutch gave way, but it prompted a moment of magic that seemingly only rallying can provide.

Step forward co-driver Harryman, who has seen it all over the years, and from a young age too, having witnessed his father call the notes for luminaries including 1981 world champion Vatanen, Michele Mouton and Malcolm Wilson. The Avenger’s saviour on this occasion was a bottle of Lucozade and Harryman’s honed engineering skills. In order to limp the car back to the team’s mechanics, Harryman displayed how valuable it is to carry cable ties and energy drinks.

Meeke was leading when he hit terminal engine trouble. He’s pledged to be back

Photo by: Paul Lawrence

“I’m quite fortunate that I’ve grown up [in rallying] and served as an engineer and worked on rally cars for 10 years,” explains Harryman. “The Lucozade trick came from seeing somebody doing something similar, pouring liquid into the bell housing to get the clutch to stick. It’s basically just sugar and once that starts to heat it becomes really sticky.

“But the bigger job was trying to reconnect the clutch cable underneath the car. We got the car to do another 10 miles and it cried enough. It’s a nice story.”

Known for helping humans in their need for replenishing energy, Lucozade can now add reviving Avenger clutches to its capabilities, it seems. But a sugary drink and cable ties can only get you so far. A 220-mile journey north lay ahead as the team managed to get the car to its Carlisle-based workshop for an all-nighter. First, a clutch had to be sourced before the repair commenced, finishing in the early hours. Come Saturday morning the car was headed for the Scottish borders for the 70-mile third leg based around Newton Stewart in Dumfries and Galloway.

"Kielder was a car graveyard. They were in the ditches, and we caught and passed six cars over the 24 miles" Tony Jardine

Scotland proved to be much kinder on the Avenger and Jardine managed to find his rhythm, ending the day with two top-three stage times in the C2 1600 class. There was still a sting in the tail when the rally moved back to England around the famous Kielder Forest that once hosted the WRC’s finest. As night fell on the Harwood stage, rocks caused an unusual off into a ditch.

“I was coming down a hill into a 90-degree left and we hit some rocks and my elbow struck the car door and I hit my funny bone – I took my hand off the wheel and steered straight into a ditch,” explains Jardine, who luckily was able to recover the car back onto the road thanks to the marshals.

Jardine wasn’t the only driver to succumb to the perils of the night-time stages. Solberg had amassed a five-minute lead, thanks to 20 fastest stage times, but hopes of a victory were extinguished in an instant by a driveshaft failure on his Escort.

But the RAC bug had definitely bitten the 22-year-old: “I felt we had everything under control until we had the problem with the driveshaft. One went and then I was trying to nurse the car out with just one-wheel drive and the other broke. That was a shame, but what an event.

Oliver Solberg relishes the simplicity of the Escort and the challenge of mastering it

Photo by: Ben Lawrence

“My main priority is the WRC. If there’s time in the future, I would really like to come back for some fun. I want to say thank you to the people – in the rain, the fog, the freezing night time, they were there and they never stopped cheering. The passion and enthusiasm in the Solberg family is huge for rallying – these people were just like us, and I love them for that.”

Solberg’s words hit the nail on the head. The passion for rallying on display from the thousands who congregated stage-side and on the road sections helped evoke memories from the original RAC.

This passion was matched by the competitors striving to conquer this marathon. Solberg’s retirement offered up an opportunity for Marty McCormack and Barney Mitchell to guide their Mk2 Escort to outright victory by a margin of 5m30s from Cathan McCourt, while the fan favourite, Perez-driven Stratos was denied a podium after dropping out on the final stage, simply known as the ‘The Big One’ due to its whopping 29-mile length.

Positions are in many ways secondary on an event like this, as Jardine can attest after navigating the trials and tribulations of the RAC’s 33 stages to finish 83rd.

“Honestly, hurdle after hurdle you feel like you’ve conquered a flipping mountain – I’m still in shock that we got home,” he sighs. “It feels euphoric absolutely because everything comes together, all the planning, the car preparation and the work with Allan. You are listening for every noise in the car and the last stage was just littered with cars. Kielder was a car graveyard. They were in the ditches, and we caught and passed six cars over the 24 miles, as it was truncated.”

Aside from the achievement of being among the 101 intrepid and determined crews to reach the finish, the true winner is rallying. This homage to the original RAC encapsulated everything the famous rally stood for, and the response from the public and those watching around the world online proved that the passion for UK rallying remains strong.

“I think there is a lot of growth in historic rallying,” concludes Jardine. “The people were out there in their droves, tickets were sold out. Rallying is the sport of the people, rallying comes to the people, it goes and travels around, and drivers are in cars the people recognise, and these are cars people aspire to own. “When you have people turning up in retro clothes, you know what, the organisers have cracked it.”

After placing 83rd out of 101 crews, Jardine will be back for more this year

Photo by: Colin Green

What the WRC can learn from the Roger Albert Clark Rally

There’s no question that the 2023 Roger Albert Clark Rally was an overwhelming success. It captured the imagination of UK rally fans and, by attracting World Rally Championship stars Kris Meeke and Oliver Solberg, the event went to another level. On social media it was a smash hit, with Autosport’s own video output from the event exceeding more than a million views, in addition to the many millions of watched clips captured by fans.

So, are there lessons to be learned from the RAC’s success for the wider rallying world and even the World Rally Championship?

There is no doubt that nostalgia is big business at the moment, and the RAC taps perfectly into that market with its historic vehicles and its homage to the original RAC Rally. This is, of course, difficult to replicate in the WRC, but a healthy dose of nostalgia among the discipline’s modern monsters in some shape or form can surely do no harm.

"We need to have the WRC back here. You can see that for a historic race there are more people watching than what we have in the WRC now" Oliver Solberg

One area where the RAC excelled was the way fans could interact with the rally. At WRC level certain protocols are in place – and for good reason, since safety is paramount. But the set-up at Sweet Lamb was the perfect example of how fans could get extraordinary value for money.

Sweet Lamb featured a remote service park located within the stage confines. Fans could walk around the tents, look at the cars and talk to drivers before taking a short walk to several viewing points to watch the cars tackle a water splash, navigate a hillclimb or slide around various hairpins. This concept was widely praised. It must be said that the inclusion of more remote services is being considered by the WRC for the future.

“Honestly, it’s been fantastic,” says Oliver Solberg. “The organisers seem to understand completely how to make it work – they have the service area close to the stages, so we can spend lots of time with the fans, the spectators can see everything and still we’re doing a lot of miles in fantastic stages.

“It’s simple. We need to have the WRC back here. You can see that for a historic race there are more people watching than what we have in the WRC now. I also think it’s important for the WRC to learn that to take 10% of what they have done here will bring people closer and have a bit more of an open and free atmosphere for people to enjoy more.”

His 2003 world rally champion father Petter adds: “This rally is so special and with this type of RAC Rally over five days. It brings back memories. In general, they have sold out all of the tickets and the reaction on social media and YouTube has been incredible. It’s a really cool thing. For WRC, this is a big motorsport country so of course it would be important to have it back here.”

For 2003 WRC champion Petter Solberg, the event brings back memories of years gone by

Photo by: Ben Lawrence