MG Midget crew Archie & Richard Simmonds were the winners of Stockton & District Motor Club’s 3rd running of the Croft Historic Rally on Sunday. The Simmonds managed to overcome a swathe of Escorts to wrest victory by over 2 minutes from Ross Butterworth & Ali Proctor’s Mexico with Adrian Stewart/ Tom Hynd’s Morris Mini Cooper S a mere 11 seconds further back in third overall (1st in class H2) making the trip from Aberdeen worthwhile.
The event started and finished at Darlington Football club with tests centred on a bitterly cold but generally dry Croft race circuit with with regularity sections to and from remote tests at Sedbury, near Scotch Corner and Cliffe hall.
47 cars made the start but the fast and furious action at Croft seemed to take its toll on transmissions and brakes with several retirees’ before the lunch halt. Test 2 was huge, utilising all of the circuit and some of the access roads, paddock plus the loose rallycross section competitors took around 8 minutes to complete it, though it saw a sad early finish for car 7 a 1968 Mini clubman estate driven by John Sykes/ Nick Cooper which was badly damaged in a collision with a tree at Croft. Both crew members were unhurt but a little shaken after the car slipped on the very wet grass on the edge of the test.
At the restart after lunch the crews were treated to 5 tests on Croft circuit in rapid succession, the latter 2 of these tests were subject to some quite heavy flurries of snow, which did create a few moments for the drivers both with vision and traction.
40 cars made the final test back at the football stadium to be classified. Notable results included 16 year old Josh Davison who navigated his father Michael’s Mini into a fine seventh overall. David Agnew/ Graeme Mactavish damaged their Porsche 911 in a collision with a tree at Sedbury but battled on to claim the class H3 honours. Ian Curwen. Bob Hargreaves made a late switch back into their regular Mini as the RS2000 they planned to use was put up for sale, but still came home 2nd in class H2 behind Stewart & Hynd.
Croft circuit raised around £400 for their chosen charity St Teresa’s hospice, Darlington from donations on the gate. M.Peacock
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