Mini Tempest Stages 2001

Now in its 14th year the Mini Tempest Stages, organised with such flair by Sutton & Cheam MC, inherited the spot of being the opening round of the very popular RALLY 2001 Championship following the loss of other events due to the Foot and Mouth crisis.

Longcross, nestling in the Surrey Stockbroker belt, is almost immune to the constraints being placed upon other venues as with a large perimeter fence and no wildlife apart from the odd rabbit, it is an oasis in these difficult times. Even those campaigning a 'non-people movement' stance are scuppered by the 11,000 cars an hour which pass along the M3 within 25 metres of the stage start. The venue is operating Monday to Friday and as one might expect it is seeing an unusually high influx of vehicle test programs as well as the off Hollywood Film Crew and advertisement maker.

Anyway, back to the event...... With three of the top four entries being previous winners of this event a close contest was almost inevitable but it was to be fifth seed Mark Straker / Oliver Pearson (Darrian T9) who were to set the pace over the opening pair of stages just 1 second ahead of Paul Shelmerdine / Steve Renham (Escort Cosworth) with Dave Jacobs / Nick Starkey a further second behind in their Metro 6R4.

Former Safety Devices Champion Chris Wood / Neil Chambers had borrowed the Escort Cosworth of Harvey Gibbs and were 4 more in arrears in fourth spot.

One of the first casualties of the day was Pat Waterman in his newly acquired Sapphire Cosworth who demolished a marker post shortly after the start. Straker suffered from an intermittent electrical fault which was causing the Darrian to cut out momentarily and by SS4 Jacobs had taken over the lead 4 seconds up on Shelmerdine, with Straker 1 second back and Wood now 8 seconds down on the leading trio.

Such was the competition that only 2 seconds covered the score of the top five crews over the 7 miles of SS4. Straker seemed to have solved his problem on SS5 and took 6 seconds off the pair in front of him to regain the lead. SS5 was to see the retirement from 6th spot of the other Straker brother Jeremy with throttle linkage problems on his rapid GTM. Eighth placed Kevin King / Adam Carter (Metro 6R4) also retired on this stage with driveshaft failure a similar problem affecting the Subaru Impreza WRX of Jon Finch / Aled Davies.

Tony Jannetta / Lee Carter had been steadily going about the task in hand in their Metro 6R4 but a blown exhaust took with it the power steering pump and cost them over 10s on stage 6. Jannetta was on a flying visit from his current home in the US whilst the aforementioned Mr Finch flew into Fairoaks from his Monaco apartment that morning. With Jeremy Straker retiring and the next placed crew of Paul King / Paul Hollingham over half-a-minute in arrears their 5th place was not affected. A spin for Wood on cold tyres on SS6 also meant that the gap at the front of the field was gradually opening up. Jacobs took 2 seconds back from Straker on stage 6 to regain the lead and as the crews lined up for the start of the last stage just 9s covered the top three places but as the saying goes "it's not over until etc." and as Jacobs entered the Snake section for the last time the rear cross shaft broke and the Metro limped on in two wheel drive mode. The resultant loss in time dropped Jacobs to 3rd behind Shelmerdine with 1st place going to a delighted Straker. Wood held on to 4th with Jannetta 5th and Class C winner King 6th.

Charlie Rees / James Griffiths took Class B by 6s from Trevor Martin / Dave Henderson with Class A going to Julian and MatthewWilkes.

The organisers did well to cope with a capacity 90-car field. Such was the demand for an entry that they could have run a second event for the reserves, a situation that we will all have to get use to until the present lack of events due to the Foot and Mouth crisis is resolved.