2010 West Midlands Rally

West Midlands Rally 2010

At one stage it looked as if for the first time in many years there would be no West Midlands Rally when the original proposal at Shugborough fell through on account of a double booking. Likewise at one stage it seemed there would be no Birdingbury event after the original team who had been involved since 1989 announced they'd not organise one this year.

Click on the thumbprints for enlargements:

Happily I received an approach from Bob Munro, on whose land most of the festival took place, asking if we could provide a good turn out for 2010 as he did not have the old mailing list and needed as much support as he could get.
That was when I had the idea of holding the West Midlands Rally at the Show. There was a precedent in the 1996 International Rally but in those days there were more fields available. Unfortunately but not surprisingly on this occasion the organisers made clear that they'd only accommodate us if we stayed on site for both days as they didn't want a big gap on the rally field if we went on a daytime road run.

In the end we devised an evening road run straight out of the show arena via a scenic route with 3 windmills and several more interesting old buildings en route. John and Rachel Maxwell found us an ideal pub for an evening meal-The Carpenters Arms at Lower Boddington, a Hook Norton Brewery tied house.

Even that was not straightforward as the pub changed tenants between our original booking and the event and our booking wasn't passed on. Fortunately the new tenants were very helpful and good meals were enjoyed by all. We had 8 cars on the road run, the 10s of Malc Graham and Ian And Rosalyn Colledge, Alun Lewis' 8 from South Wales, my Vanguard estate and the Maxwells' Flying 9 making a welcome return to the Rally scene. Sadly Harry Assheton-Smith's Vignale Vanguard was playing up and didn't make the run. The remaining cars were John Lawley our Group leader's Jaguar XJS and 2 TRs, Dave and Margaret Gleed's TR2 and Roger and Julie Griffths' TR6 both from the local Coventry TR Register Group.

David Mileham"s 12, the Worbys' VIgnale Vanguard and my 8 Gold Star made up numbers on the Club stand for the Saturday and on the Sunday we had a total of 19 cars which led to the stand overflowing with another Welsh car, the Goughs from Aberystwyth, Charles and Patrick Brotherton in respectively an Avon Sports and a Vanguard Luxury 6 estate, Brian Birch from Hall Green in his Phase 2 Vanguard, Mick Papworth in his TR4 and the 3 prizewinning cars, pre 1948 the Hancox's Flying Heavy 12 from Hinckley ( for the 7th time !), best post 1948 Rachel Palmer-Charles' superb Vanguard 6 Ute from Australia and best 8,10 and Pennant that of John Russell. Sadly once again mechanical problems deprived us of several other cars but happily Dave Gleed as a former works mechanic was able to fix Harry Assheton-Smith's Vignale and my Vanguard's idling problem-a useful man to have at a rally and he has a lovely TR2 !

Fine display of Grey Fergy's at Birdingbury

Birdingbury Show seemed to me to be better than ever this year with lots of interesting classic cars,some superb commercials including a wonderful collection of Fodens from the Pearsons of Coventry and a great selection of steam vehicles including not only traction engines and rollers but also a couple of superb trucks. One of these a 6 wheeled Sentinel van in J.Lyons livery was making its local rally debut and for me was the vehicle of the show.-Yes I know it wasn't a Standard.

It was a pity our stand was a little crowded but it was a grand weekend with weather to match.

Report by Peter Lockley

Photos by Graham Lockley

(July 2010)