I began competing in rallies soon after learning to drive at the age of 18 in 1968. I competed on my last event (so far) in 1992 but have been out quite often since then assisting or as service crew for friends.
It was a great time to be involved in rallying, with most of the iconic cars being there during this same era.
My first rally car was the family's 1959 Ford Prefect 107E and the last one was a 1987 Ford Sierra Cosworth 3 door which we built from a bare shell. The Prefect had 39 bhp and the Sierra about 250+ bhp.
We went from small club 12 car night navigational exercises to large International rallies in various parts of Britain and Europe.
We met a lot of like-minded people from all over and made a lot of good friends along the way.
We also spent a lot of money, but I wouldn't want to have missed it for anything.
Rallying is very much a team sport and I was very lucky to have a group of good folk around to help and make it all happen at each stage of the journey. Most of them were fellow competitors who gave their time to help us and we tried to do the same in return.
This is their story as much as mine.