Duckhams run the Army Rally Team

Hi evryone,
Les Dalton hear in sunny France, I am going to ENDEAVOUR to post some pics of my rally cars that were supported by that great guy Ron Carnell, with his fabulous green oil.
Bugger!!!!! I still cant get past this URl thing, I will try again later.
Regards,
Les.

Posted on behalf of Les Dalton, who will provide the narrative

Les has some wonderful stories to go with these photos, I used to compete against the Army Land-Rovers on A.S.C.S.M.C. road rallies,which invited the B.A.M.A. they were pretty rapid going across Salisbury Plain!

Posted on behalf of Les Dalton, who will provide the narrative

Hi Everyone, this is our lovely little Mini AFTER being savaged by 75% of the 1981 RAC rally stages, the problem we had, was that on those rather miniscule 10" wheels, we kept falling into Quattro furrows, on the first stage in the Forest of Dean, I went up to the stage start, the marshall counted us down and dropped the flag, I built up the revs and dropped the clutch and: we just bloody well sat there on the sump guard, with our little wheels about spinning away about 3" off the ground, the crowd pushed us back and I had to put one wheel in the channel, and the other up the bank, so we had an alarming list to port to get away from the start line.
We eventually litterally shook to bits, and had major electricle problems, during the first half of the rally, we used 4 alternators and 3 batteries, the last one cost me a fortune from a little Welsh garage late on the sunday night, but through the early hours of Monday morning in the kielder complex we just ran out of spark, the lights and wipers had stopped a couple of stages earlier and I was driving on side lights, and a mud spattered windscreen.
It proved later to be a faulty ammeter which was burning out alternators and draining the batteries, but, as the Geordie lads would say: hey man, thats rallying for you!!!.
Les.

Edited by Les Dalton, 09 May 2009 - 09:29.

Les has some wonderful stories to go with these photos, I used to compete against the Army Land-Rovers on A.S.C.S.M.C. road rallies,which invited the B.A.M.A. they were pretty rapid going across
Salisbury Plain!

Right then, here we go with this batch, all of these pictures are showing cars supported by Duckhams, except for my 1800.
Photo 421 was taken at the start of the 1982 RAC rally in York, and the Mini looked quite pristine, not quite what it looked like 24 hours later after I had rolled it in the Margam stage in the Neath Valley forest, Beeb and me gave ourselves a hernia each lifting it back onto the wheels and off we roared again, I was begining to think the roll had not caused any damage, when about 3 stages later, the oil warning light came on, at the service the lads filled up the sump and searched for any oil leaks, but in the dark could see nothing wrong, however, the further we went on the rally,the more oil we used, I think I took most of Ron Carnells lovely green stuff during the night, at least 30 litres, and we also bought some from various garages, we were using oil at about 10 miles for a gallon, and on the very long stage 14 we had to stop twice to top up the sump and eventually had to stop near the end of SS 19 when the engine started to sieze up.
When my service crew got to check it out (in the daylight) they dicovered that when we had rolled the car "three times", it had fractured the crankcase breather pipe, which was right down the back of the engine and as a consequence, could not easily be seen, and the oil just pored out of there, they replaced the breather pipe and the little Mini was as good as new again.

Photo 424 was taken at the Dunlop hairpin on the 1982 RAC rally, one of my sponsors the MD and owner of Astrali, was a guest of Dunlop here, and he said the sound of our litte mini engine screaming up to the hairpin and the superb handbrake turn got one of the biggest cheers of the day.

Photo 448 was taken on the hairpin at the bottom of the Olivers Mount (Scarberough) motor cycle race track, when it was used as a special stage on the 1982 Mintex international rally,the blue smoke was just caused through excessive oil surge.

Photo 490 shows that Ron Carnell had signed up the entire Army entry on the 1977 Scottish International, with the exception of my 1800 which was sponsored by ESSO for 1977 and 78, as you can see by the livery on the last picture.

Hope you enjoyed those, I might put some extracts from my book FLY ARMY on here for your perusal later.
Regards,
Les.

Edited by Les Dalton, 09 May 2009 - 10:11.

Les, fantastic stories, I rallied a Mini Cooper, and although not the R.A.C. experienced the "sump guard" effect on many 3 ply roads and whites, the noise that came from under the car did not sound pleasant, and some times you could feel the floor flexing up and down Great days

Weren't you stopped in one of the Dean stages on the 82 RAC? I recall passing a Mini stopped on the right hand side of the road and the BAMA car was the only Mini on the 82 RAC?
By 82 Duckhams were certainly not helping the CSMA team the way they used to. By 84 all I got was a 5 litre can of oil. 10 years earlier they had to send a truck to my home address with all the supplies.

Weren't you stopped in one of the Dean stages on the 82 RAC? I recall passing a Mini stopped on the right hand side of the road and the BAMA car was the only Mini on the 82 RAC?
By 82 Duckhams were certainly not helping the CSMA team the way they used to. By 84 all I got was a 5 litre can of oil. 10 years earlier they had to send a truck to my home address with all the supplies.

Yes RS2000 that was me, the car just died mid stage, and some spectators gave us a push and it fired up and we got going again,only to roll it on the next stage Margam, where our lubrication problems started after the crankcase breather (which was fractured in the flip) started blowing oil out, Ron Carnell gave me most of his supply I think.
I am intrigued now, as you say you came past us, what car were you in?I am looking at the entry list (with a photograph of a very youthful looking Fred Gallagher , who finished 3rd O/A with Henri,just below the lovely Michele Mouton) and also the results for the rally. AH, I think I have you, Keith Lay and Alan Goodrick car 160, Team CSMA in a Ford RS2000??? and you finished 61st, small world this motor sport game.
You must have known a couple of my chums, John Parsons, and Alan Thorburn, Alan used the Avenger/Tiger.
The Mini number 155 was the one you passed in the Forest of Dean.
Regards from France,
Les.

(with a photograph of a very youthful looking Fred Gallagher , who finished 3rd O/A with Henri,just below the lovely Michele Mouton) and also the results for the rally.

You may be interested Les, that Fred posts on this forum

You may also be interested to know that a spare Marina V8 built up for the '74 London-Munich did sterling service in Australia as a racing car...

You may also be interested to know that a spare Marina V8 built up for the '74 London-Munich did sterling service in Australia as a racing car...

I remember that Ray, I saw it in Yateley (IIRC), any photos? Was that the car driven by Hemsley (sp)?

No, it's the spare car, not run in the event...

I personally don't have photos, I'm sure Terry Walker does. It was raced by Gordon Mitchell, who turbocharged the Rover engine.

No, it's the spare car, not run in the event...

I personally don't have photos, I'm sure Terry Walker does. It was raced by Gordon Mitchell, who turbocharged the Rover engine.

Hi Ray,
Just picked up this thread, I had the good fortune ( and the honour) of having my landrover engines turbocharged by MR Turbo himself, Alan Allard, for several Internaional rallies in 1979 and 1981.
The performance was absolutely awsome, I had fitted a Unipart overdrive unit and we could pull 90 in overdrive 3rd gear through the forests, the only problems I had was loosing all the brakes on the 1979 Welsh International rally, in which we won the class by over 30 minutes, and blowing up the rear diff on the 1979 and 1981 Scottish International rallies and having to finish the event on front wheel drive only, which does tend to make the wrists ache a tad.
Driving the Turbo Landrover was pure exhileration, with a capital E.
kind Regards from France,
Les.