Carlisle and North Cumbria played host to two RAC Rallies in November: the Roger Albert Clark Rally and the Lombard RAC Revival Rally. According to the tradition, Carlisle was the overnight stop, where pit crews could make essential repairs to vehicles.

Chris Day instead made a stop at Minimaster in Penrith on the second leg of the competition. During his brief stop we changed a wheel bearing, and made a couple of other tactical repairs. Whilst in our workshop, we took the opportunity to have a look around it.

The rally was for cars under 1400cc, and designed to be an endurance event with a mixture of road runs, and auto-tests. Chris and Ric were sixth overall after leg 1 (York to Carlisle), and second on leg 2 (Carlisle to Chester). He was actually first overall at the finish in Cheltenham ahead of 88 others but was later dropped to fourth position after a time penalty was given. This was apparently due to a fuel leak, which caused him to run out of fuel.

Congratulations to Chris and Ric for doing so well amongst stiff competition: the event started with big names and ex-works cars experience such as Gwyndaf Evans, Tony Fall (ex-works driver and MD of Safety Devices) and Neil Wilson (navigator for Henri Toivenen). However, it all seems reminiscent of the Monte Carlo - the mighty mini once again slayed the giants!