The BTRDA 2003 Championship

The BTRDA 2003 Championship, with Richard Crossland & Linette Applegate
in the Alfred Ashley Technical Services sponsored Escort Cosworth

Report by Richard Crossland.

We made our first trip of the year to the Wyedean Forest Rally, in February. We had just finished having the engine of the Escort Cosworth rebuilt after it destroyed itself at the end of last year. Preparation time was tight however, with some hard work from Martin Snell of Apex Motor factors in Witney, Oxon and Henry Whitfield of Vision Motorsport in Enstone, Oxon, things were looking good. Unfortunately, that was all to change as after the new engine was fitted, the first session of priming the engine revealed no oil pressure. Hence, after a few frantic phone calls it was decided the engine would have to be removed and sent back to its builder as we suspected that there was a defect in oil routing in the engine block. The scheduled had now changed from being fairly comfortable to being near impossible but, the engine was retuned to the engineer and indeed an internal core plug was found to be missing in the engine block. The engine was returned with but a few days to go and with some very late nights Martin Snell had the engine back in and running. This left the “running in” to be done on the journey home from the workshop and back the next day when on arrival the car was loaded onto the trailer. The car was not prepared quite to the standard that any of us were fully happy with but given the timescales, the team had been exceptional.

This season marks the return to serious rallying for the driver and car, after a five year break and I guess a poor seeding was to be expected but, car 108 was a little ludicrous. However, we soon put that aside as both Richard Crossland and Linette Applegate of Macarthur Motorsport, jumped into the car at the beginning of the day, ready for a days rallying. But unfortunately the first problem of the day was soon to strike, even before we had reached the start-line. The auxiliary fan was not working and with a turbo that spends most of its time glowing red hot, this is not an optional extra. Hence, with a new switch in place we were soon to roll. The day on the whole was OK and we were finding our feet again in the forest however, the seeding meant that car preservation was to win over competing to our full ability, as some parts of the stages would have been better suited to my towing vehicle, a Jeep Cherokee, rather than the rally car. Despite the ruff conditions we were soon climbing into the top 50 overall, when disaster struck. We were three quarters of the way through SS3 when the cockpit filled with smoke. We backed off but continued to drive to the end of the stage, where we found that the top seal on the gearbox had come loose and was throwing out oil. On hind sight, this was a fairly minor problem as we had lost only a small amount of oil and we had managed to relocate the seal, which continued to try and escape during the rest of the day which meant poking it back into place on every road section, with a blunt screwdriver. By the end of the day we had been in the top thirty on some of the stage times and finished 43 overall. The car had handled extremely well during the Wyedean and despite some minor problems, it was clear that we were poised to enter the top thirty on the next round of the BTRDA, the North Humberside. Hence, with both the support team and co-driver now being supplied by Macarthur Motorsport, in the form of Pat Macarthur and Linette Applegate respectively, we ventured north to do battle. SS1 was the old motor bike racing circuit at Scarborough, Oliver’s Mount. Whilst great fun, we were a little off the pace and could have done with a tighter centre diff, something that was to plague us through the year. SS2 was straight into the forest and a 12 miler to boot and this is where it all went horribly wrong. It was but three miles into the stage that the under-steer and vibration from the front near side wheel increased (puncture time!). What was to follow can, in retrospect, only be described as hilarious as whilst trying to change the wheel on stage the jack sank into the mud twice, the car fell off the jack and confusion reigned supreme! There had been no choice but to change the wheel in the stage as there were straights where 115+Mph could be achieved easily and with 9 miles to go the options where short. Hence, with a 10 minute delay whilst changing the wheel and the rest of the stage being ran in the dust of the previous car, we were out of the running for a good finish. The rest of the rally was used primarily for testing but also to compare stage times with our stage times on the second from last and last being 20th and 19th quickest respectively.

The car was working well and with some fairly major re-prep work from Mr Snell we were ready to go and heading for the home of the Ford World Rally Team, M-Sport in Cockermouth, for the Malcolm Wilson. This was to be one of the best organised events of the year, ran with pace notes (sorry, subjective route notes, what ever they are), up to date results, SMS results, RallyTrack with about the only thing they had not organised, being the whether, that was atrocious for the whole day. With a start number in the fifties, things were getting better however, the stages were still very cutup in places. On the whole it was a good event for us and we continued to set good stage times, finishing 27th overall, with Malcolm Wilson winning the rally, followed by approx. five other WRC cars.

It soon became clear that the BTRDA was becoming a victim of its own success, with every round over subscribed several weeks before and hence the competition was absolutely blistering.

April saw us head south west again for the Somerset. We were the happiest we had been with the car, we had a full support team on board and hence, were feeling very relaxed, boy were things set to change! The day started well, with apart from the stages being very short and hence hard to get into the flow of. The stages then started to tighten with lots of up hill hairpins and the car started to struggle, big time! We knew that the gearbox final drive ratios where too high but I don’t think we realised how far out they were, which made the uphill starts a major battle to get to, let alone perfect the launch. Hence, just when it was really starting to become hard work the Anti-Lag System (ALS) cut out mid stage. We instantly knew that it was probably a water injection problem and hence, Martin purged the system at the next management service, finding air in the system. The very next stage the ALS stopped mid stage again meaning that Linette could have read crossword clues rather than pace notes, coming out of the hairpins. Once again the Water Injection was full of air which pointed towards a failure in the non return valve, which was replaced at the last service and seemed to do the trick however, as we made our way to the next stage I gradually lost the ability to disengage the clutch. Hence, on the last stage we had to start the car in gear on the start line and for a car that struggles to start at the best of times, it was a miracle that we got away. The last stage was approx. 9 miles and the dog box earned its keep as every gear change was clutch-less, both up and down however, that was not the problem. The tight uphill hairpins were so tight that with the high gear ratio and no ability to slip the clutch and re-launch, we nearly stalled on a number of occasions and completely stalled once, costing us probably 10 places. Needless to say, were very happy to finish and ended up 30th overall, which all things considered was probably our best result to date.

After the Somerset the gearbox and Diffs, were sent to DOME to have the ratios lowered and the diffs tightened. With the re-prep coming to an end we are preparing for the Red Dragon, 24th May. Thus the car should now be at its best and so it is just up to the driver and co-driver now, to put together a performance that will move the team into the top ten in the championship.

After the Red Dragon it is certain that we will stand down for the Dukeries. The rest of the season has then to be decided as our main sponsor Alfred Ashley Technical Services, a computer company based in West London and Manchester is to review the program for the rest of the year based on their exposure, so if you have any commercial IT requirements call them on 01923 841003 and tell them where you got the number!

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