Preparation, organisation & practice

27

Right: When surveyed in the winter of 1969/1970, Primes through the Andes were very high, on dirt surfaces, and often threatened with closure due to snow storms. Roger Clark was driving this Escort practice car, with Henry

Liddon taking the picture.Bottom right: Staged? Let’s hope so, for Roger Clark was at the wheel in this

practice shot, which was taken in Argentina. By South American standards, that was a well-surfaced road.

Below: Although bridges such as this were quite safe, there was no protection in case the car slid to one side. It was important to reach the start

of the crossing when well under control!

gasoline, and in all probability will be dispensed by means of 5 gallon (22.7L) cans and funnels ... the fuel in Ecuador will be a mixture of 50 per cent Premium gasoline and 50 per cent PN100/130 Avgas ...”

– which shows just how carefully the big sponsors were prepared to keep their precious charges going.

Telling the worldThe Daily Mirror, no question, set out to ensure that the whole world knew about ‘its’ rally, and about the super-professional way that it intended to disseminate updates. Sprinzel’s master-stroke was to hire John Lewsey of the London Motor Club, who had evolved Britain’s best results service while the Gulf London Rally was at its height in the mid-1960s, and had also done so much to make the London-Sydney Marathon results service

Overture and beginners: London to Lisbon

91

Prime 5: Arganil to Pampilhosa – the Portuguese Prime(Target: 45 miles/72.4km in 65 minutes)

Fastest times:

Crew Car Penalty (mins)H Mikkola/G Palm Ford Escort 1850 0A Fall/J Greaves Ford Escort 1850 0R Aaltonen/H Liddon Ford Escort 1850 0R Clark/A Poole Ford Escort 1850 0R Trautmann/J-P Hanrioud Citroën DS21 0T Makinen/G Staepeleare Ford Escort 1850 0G Verrier /F Murac Citroën DS21 1S Zasada/M Wachowski Ford Escort 1850 3B Culcheth/J Syer Triumph 2.5PI 3P Vanson/A Turcat/ O Leprince Citroën DS21 3R Neyret/J Terramorsi Citroën DS21 6I Marang/P Coltelloni Citroën DS21 8J-C Ogier/C Laurent Peugeot 404 8P Hopkirk/A Nash/N Johnston Triumph 2.5PI 8

all sure that he would even reach Lisbon. Hours later, and before arriving at yet another Ford service point, the temporary weld failed again. At the next point, the resident expert was Nobby Clark of British Vita (a company which had built one of the seven ‘works’ Escorts). There seemed to be enough time – just time – for what was going to be a lengthy rebuilding job. Nobby took the axle off the car, disappeared down the road with it to a local garage, had it welded up, strengthened, with extra beam stiffeners included, and sent Roger and Alec Poole on their way after a mammoth delay of six hours!

Too much lateness to make up? Not at all – for Roger then raced across France, across Spain, and into Portugal, found that he had time in hand before the Arganil Pime – and was relaxed enough to ‘clean’ that stage, which he duly did. Other Escorts, but not all, were in similar trouble – for the Fall/Greaves car also suffered a similar breakage, and the other machines showed signs of an impending breakage. It was typical of Hannu Mikkola’s luck (and driving methods, maybe) on this event, that his car (FEV 1H) did not show any signs of failure ...

Just before arrival in Lisbon, Prime 5, later described as being almost ‘forestry stage’ in character, was situated near Arganil. So easy had the open-road schedule been during the previous two days that some crews had time for several hours sleep, before they chose to attack this Prime in full daylight. Not that it was going to be too demanding of them, for the factory

Seventy-one cars lined up, and ready for loading onto the Derwent, at the close of the European section in Lisbon. The three cars nearest the camera were no 18 (Hannu

Mikkola’s Escort), no 12 (Robert Neyret’s Citroën DS21, and no 101 (Guy Verrier’s Citrroen DS21). Only the Escort would make it to the finish.

The Daily Mirror 1970 World Cup Rally 40

94

Gluttons for punishmentsaturday, 25 April to friday, 8 may – no fewer than 14 days – covered the time between the end of the european leg, and the start of the south American section of the event. some crews lazed around – the Copacabana beaches in rio de Janeiro were very seductive – and a few flew ahead to carry out last-minute recces in the Brazilian and uruguayan sections which were soon to follow.

roger Clark and ace-mechanic Bill meade flew back to the uK to design, engineer, test and manufacture the axle braces which would ensure that ford’s escorts would complete the event. A few, myself included, had to return to the uK to take up the ‘day job’, if only for a short time.

one team, however – Citroën – saw little point in doing nothing. for no sooner had the Ds21s reached lisbon than Guy Verrier (third) and robert neyret (seventh), along with Citroën ‘works’ team manager rené Cotton, and a team of experienced mechanics, flew off to north Africa, to pick up a new set of cars, and to compete in the rough-and-tough rally of morocco, which ended in Casablanca!

these were three ugly short-wheelbase/two-door prototype Ds21s which carried different rear-end styles (the third car was driven by local hero Jean Deschazeaux), which fought among themselves for the lead on what was a very demanding event. in the end, only 12 of the 63 cars completed the event. two of the Citroëns retired after mechanical breakdowns, but robert neyret/Jacques terramorsi started from no 1, and finished first. not only that, but the Consten/todt Group 1 Ds21 (they were not involved in the World Cup) took second place.

interviewed after the finish of the morocco rally, neyret said: “it was harder than the first part of london-mexico, and i tremble a little to think how many moroccan rallies are waiting for me in south America ...”

After which neyret, Verrier and their co-drivers hopped on another plane and flew over to rio de Janeiro ...

service, repairs, but certainly not a bodged job – this is one of the ‘works’ escorts on the dockside

in lisbon.

Before it reached Portugal, this ultra-expensive vehicle had suffered a rear wheel hub bearing failure (subsequent investigation showed that it had never been grease-packed, even when new). The crew had no such spares on board, no service crew to greet them, and no conceivable way of getting replacements from the UK in a hurry. Somehow or other (and the can-do business acumen of owner Ray Richards must have had something to do with this), a Silver Shadow private owner was located within 100km (62.1 miles). He was subsequently ‘persuaded’ to donate the appropriate corner from his own car, and Rolls-Royce was then shamed into air-freighting suitable parts to that Portuguese owner, whose car was sitting on blocks in his garage! Only ace-fixer Bengry, co-driver David Skeffington, and tycoon Richards could have achieved this sort of thing – yet somehow it was exactly what the world of rallying seemed to expect.

When the dust had settled, the state of play could then be surveyed. Twenty five cars had already dropped out – some due to accidents, some due to mechanical bothers, and a few due to exhaustion among their crews – and battle lines

The Daily Mirror 1970 World Cup Rally 40

150

the top four or five crews all cleaning the Prime, the 250 mile (402.3km) dash was now to be set in three hours instead of four – an 83.3mph (134.1kph) target average – over foggy and mostly jungle-lined tracks, from the Ecuadorian border at Macara, to Cuenca by way of Zaraguro. For the drivers, who might indeed be rested after the awful exertions of Bolivia and Peru, this might almost have felt like a frolic, for the much-reduced cavalcade realised that this was to be their final flat-out test before the end of the South American section.

With Hannu Mikkola now well ahead, and with Paddy Hopkirk now probably too far behind the leading trio to upset the order (even though there were three long Primes still to go ...), there seemed to be little incentive for anyone to go absolutely flat-out over this Ecuadorian stage.

The battle for second place, between Aaltonen’s Escort and Culcheth’s Triumph 2.5PI, though, was still in the balance – and there was also the fact that the Lima-Cali road section itself was by no means a ‘touring section’, as it was set at 51.4mph (82.7kph), with one potentially troublesome border crossing (Ecuador to Colombia, where Controller Richard Harper was in attendance) still to be accomplished.

As Culcheth later commented:“This Prime was over a very smooth dirt road, and provided one of

the greatest displays of sideways rally driving ever seen. Aaltonen (Escort) and I kept up the battle for second place – he was the fastest, and we were fourth fastest, being slowed by a puncture. Ecuador provided the greatest crowds seen during the rally – in every town we went through, thousands of people lined the streets. At the refuelling place, the police had to use tear gas to control them. It was a tremendous sight, with people hanging out of buildings, climbing up trees, climbing on to the car, and all going wild with excitement ...”

By this late stage, in fact, the World Cup Rally had split itself into two major groups – on the one hand, the professionals in factory-backed

All Ford historians affectionately call this the ‘cactus shot’ – for it shows Hannu Mikkola and Gunnar Palm, at high speed, in typical South American scenery.

Rauno Aaltonen and Henry Liddon, crash helmets in place and concentrating hard in their Ford Escort on one of the Primes in South America. Aaltonen had a troubled start to the event, but fought his way all the way to second place in South America, and eventually settled for third overall.

Panama to Fortin – all over bar the shouting?

175

Fortin was in party mood when the World Cup crews arrived, with many of the locals dressed in native costume, and ready to celebrate anything for which an excuse could be found. John Sprinzel and I were rostered to run the Time Control, but on this occasion there was no idling around for hours, and time to be killed.

No fewer than 21 of the 23 cars arrived at Fortin within an hour of the Control opening, and the other two – the Red Arrows Maxi, and Harris’ Escort – were known to be some distance away. But who would be last?

“Actually,” Mike Scarlett told me many years later, “in the Red Arrows Maxi we thought we might be the last finisher – and there was to be a prize for that! We stayed up late at Fortin, hoping that no-one else would come. We knew that Doug Harris, in a privately-entered Escort, was still out there somewhere. By 02.00hr he still hadn’t arrived, so we went to bed happy. Then we got up again, we found that Doug had arrived at about 08.00hr, and he was last after all ...”

So now it was party time ...

The Red Arrows Austin Maxi was battered, but patiently and lovingly repaired by the mechanics, to allow it to finish the event, in 22nd place. In a way, the crew was disappointed that it could qualify as 23rd and last!