South East Scoobies - Tempest Rally 2014

It’s been far too long since I’ve been to a rally – and I had to miss the Tempest last year – so I had my fingers crossed this years would be good.

It was a bit of a dingy day (so not as many pictures as I was hoping for), but a few came out, so here goes…

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The majority of entries in the Tempest 4 (four wheel drive class) were Imprezas, from relatively standard…

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…all the way up to full-flight (literally!) World Rally Cars. There were actually four Impreza WRCars topping the entry, along with an R4 specification Evo X and an exceptionally noisy Escort Cosworth.

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After watching the opening four wheel drive stages, we dashed over to Pavilion to watch the two wheel drive (Tempest 2) cars make their second run through the stage.

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There were a good number (50+) of cars and plenty of variety in the Tempest 2 this year including (most importantly) lots of Escorts!

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We wrapped the day up on the Warren stage. Warren is easily my fave stage of the Tempest rally as it’s a proper forest stage and has some excellent high speed sections between the trees.

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Myself and Bandit also managed to find the location of some standing water in the stage, so we got to see some of the cars making a splash. The most spectacular moment on Warren didn’t involve water though and came care of one of the Armed Forces Land Rovers…

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...these guys always round off the four wheel drive class and I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve seen people walk off when they start coming through (me included!).

I was hoping that one of them might make a splash though, so I had the camera ready when one of them had a bit of a moment…

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As soon as we saw the Landie come to a rest on its roof we moved up to make sure the crew were OK. Thankfully no injuries (except for bruised egos) and the Land Rover sustained no major damage either (in fact the Land Rover is competing at RallyGB right now!). A lucky escape and a good example of how quickly it can all go wrong during a rally.

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Victory in the Tempest 4 went to Robert Swann and Darren Garrod. They had been seeded first in and they more than justified that accolade, setting fastest time on all 10 of the days stages and taking overall victory by nearly two minutes in their ex-Petter Solberg Impreza S11 WRC. Despite dropping some time in SS10, John Lloyd and Adrian Cavenagh brought their Impreza S11 WRC home in second and third place was taken by Karl Simmons and Rob Burridge, completing an all Impreza S11 WRC podium, hurrah!

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Tempest 2 victory went to Shawn Rayner and Declan Dean. Rayner and Dean came into the last stage (Warren) in fifth, but drove the wheels off their Escort and posted a time nearly a minute faster than the leaders. Didn’t get any pictures of them (as it was pitch black!), but they have posted a onboard video which is well worth a watch.

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Crappy weather for the last few hours, but well worth getting a bit damp to see some decent cars in action: I must try and get to more rallies in 2015!