Three Castles Rally - May 2009

Adam Singer and I decided last year to take the plunge and do the Peking to Paris in 2010. Both of us have raced before but we have not done any form of rallying. We knew though that we had to get our minds and bodies into shape so to enable us to finish a 10,000 miles race in a Speed 6 Bentley across some pretty inhospitable terrain.

We have various events planned but the first one was the Three Castles - courtesy of Ian and Wendy Crammond. If this is anything to go by I have to say we are going to enjoy this new world of rallying immensely.

What a friendly bunch and very well organised and that was even with a couple of males who had not read one piece of paperwork that they should have done and are still trying to work out what the supplementary regulations are supplementary to.

The Three Castles takes place in May over three competitive days in North Wales. We were extremely lucky this year as the weather was absolutely marvellous and some of the scenery they take you through is just quite outstanding. We decided to take the Mustang which is a very well sorted race and serious rally car because it had a Brantz already fitted – not a good idea as the fuel consumption was horrific! I suppose on the plus side there was lots of room and bags of power, if you could get it down, and we decided that we would split the driving - a couple of days driving for me with Adam being the navigator and then we would swap round, just so we could what each others problems were.

All fun? The only problem we had all week in all honesty was the scrutineering which, for whatever reasons, just took far too long. In every other respect the rally was extremely well organised and we went through some magnificent scenery and areas of Wales, although we did not know where we were, we would like to revisit. The food and the dinners and the general bonhomie of all the people there was as good as I have experienced in any competitive event and it was also great to see a lot of women enjoying the old car hobby and taking part – which is very different to track racing.

Apparently for those who are at that level this is a serious rally but even as first timers we can recommend it. Great place to learn or a great place to win, as the prizes were both plentiful and worth having

The whole thing was finished off on the Saturday night by a Gala Dinner where all the presentations took place and I was happy to raise some funds for the Air Ambulance via a very well supported charity auction. We seemed to be christened the Dukes of Hazzard, I hope because of the car, but thanks to Ian and Wendy we are now ready for the next stage of our development so we get to Peking ready, willing and able.

This rally I would recommend to anybody.

Simon Hope