HERO's London - Lisbon Classic Rally turned out to be both enjoyable and tough, with 8 full days of competition in The Cantabrian Mountains, The Picos de Europa, The Montes de Leon, The Douro Valley and the old Portuguese Rally roads round Arganil, together with a final day around Lisbon.
Both the rallyists and the organisers (we think) had expected that Northern Spain and Portugal would be largely dry in October, instead of which it was largely wet. In the mountains there was mist and very slippery conditions, sometimes on cobblestones and occasionally on a peculiar yellow compact Portuguese surface (newly laid), on which there was little grip. In the Montes de Leon, which were remote, cold and lonely, there were dustings of snow.
After the ferry from the UK, The Rally had its main start in the private Castle and Car Museum at Torre Loizaga, near Bilbao and the first three days included both regularities and driving tests on three different Kart Circuits, with the legs finishing in Santander, Gijon and Pontferrada respectively. Competitors were impressed with miles and miles of stunning, empty ‘driving’ roads, reminiscent of The Alps in the 1950’s.
By now everyone had worked out that Gold Medals would be hard to secure. The allowable lapses, besides obviously being on time at all the T.C.’s, were only 20 seconds on a regularity, 15 seconds on a kart or velodrome test and only 5 seconds on the two-lap timed test at Estoril Grand Prix Circuit. On Day 2 several rallyists 'lost' their golds on an obscure ‘off-piste’ detour into a control, but a route-book designated signpost had gone missing (after the 24 hour car passed), so all breathed again.
Wrong slots, excursions into the trees and unfortunate (almost) parallel signposting into Oviedo began to take their toll of medals, along with hub-seals, brakes and half shafts. This included retirement for the Porcus Volans (Flying Pig) Ford Special of Malts Rally Winners, Malcolm McKay and Jane Ranson.
Fast, part gravel runs to very tight time controls led to ‘offs’ for Jane Arnold-Forster/Annabel Jones’ Austin Healey and Robin Stretton’s MGA, who ended up arguing with a lamp-post. To add insult to injury, the main lamp fitment then fell 20 feet onto the bonnet! At the end of Day 3, John Abel and John Dennett led The Rally in their 1924 Bentley.
The mountains south of Pontferrada provided quite outstanding scenery, rally roads and much interest. Stan Williams and Tony Davies’ XK 120 suffered a bent rear wing from a disgruntled longhorn cow hoof and Ian and Jonathan Williamson’s Austin Healey had a horse’s head actually in the cockpit as the foal tried to follow its mother across the road. One of the Volvos’s had a coming together with a competing E Type in a remote mountain village, when a wrong slot turned out to be correct after all. Ouch!
Duck tape was much in evidence when the cars reached Vila Real in Portugal on Day 5 for a reception in The Town Hall, with both Drivers and Organisers present, from the great days of The Vila Real racing circuit in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Historic posters and photos of Stirling Moss decked the walls.
Up front, the top five in The Rally were then separated by under 50 seconds, so there was everything to play for on the run to Coimbra via Arganil. On this sector the Bentley went out with battery problems (though it finally finished) and The Wolseley Hornet of Graham Whitaker (now navigated by Annabel Jones) went out with clutch failure.
Vila Real to Coimbra (the longest day!) finished in the dark. The run to Lisbon next day was somewhat easier, with regularities only in the morning. At day’s end on Sunday, the Lotus Elan led by about 30 seconds from two Austin Healeys (Criswell/Whiteside and Rick Dyke-Price/David Brayshaw).
Monday, the last day, was a loop from Lisbon to Lisbon to include Estoril (circuit test), Sintra (hillclimb), Ericeira (time control) and Mafra (regularity). Talk about drama. At Ericeira the Sunbeam Tiger of Peter Lloyd and Suzanne May had under 30 seconds to check in and out when they finally arrived. The Lotus ‘lost the plot’ at Estoril, despite Bill Granger having worked for years with World Champion John Surtees, at more race circuits than you can shake a stick at. He claimed to have been using 3 clocks and a Halda and not only missed the five seconds ‘window’, but did an extra circuit for a 30 second maximum penalty! Pressure, us? hah!
At Sintra the corkscrew hillclimb/regularity was near impossible with the 4.5 litre Sunbeam Tigers getting closest (5-8 seconds) to the set time. Even most of the ‘Big Healeys’ were 15-25 seconds off the time. More gold medals gone!
In the end The Rally was won by just 1 second, after 8 days of competition, with the Lotus of David Gidden and Bill Granger finally triumphing over the Austin Healey of John Criswell and his father in Law, Robin Whiteside (an ex submariner who had put his global navigation skills to good use).
All in all an outstanding HERO event, very tough, with a fantastic rally route put together by Keith Baud. Classic Rallying as it should be!
