MSN Rally Championship Round One - The Neil Howard Stages, 

Oulton Park

6th November 2021

Report by Dikon Siddall

With Oulton Park transformed into a series of special stages that used some of the gravel access roads as well as the race circuit, the picturesque Cheshire venue hosted the Neil Howard Stages Rally on 6th November. The event, which was organised by Bolton-Le-Moors Car Club, was the first round of the 2021/22 Motorsport News Circuit Rally Championship.

It attracted 88 entries facing eight extremely challenging stages and covered around 50 competitive miles that included four passes through the spectacular water splash.

The Ford Escort Mk II of Mark Kelly and Neil Coleman was the first car released onto Stage 1 at 8.30am. The pairing were hoping to repeat their victory on the 2020 event (that was postponed due to the pandemic and actually took place in May 2021) but their challenge expired on Stage 3 when they hit a gatepost and retired on the spot.

Second car out of the blocks was the Ford Fiesta Rally 2 of Frank Bird and Jack Morton who stamped their authority on the event straight away and set the stage fasted time of 7:49.

They went on to set the fastest time on the remaining seven stages and finished the event 1:06 ahead of Joe Cunningham/Josh Beer (Ford Fiesta). Neil Roskell/Shaun Layland were 3rd overall in their Fiesta R5, a further 34 seconds adrift.

As the event progressed the tarmac became increasingly slippery as mud and gravel was dragged on to it, and with a couple of heavy rain showers added to the mix, led to many a spin and off track excursion.

The final stage was run in darkness. The powerful lamps fitted by the crews prior to the last pair of stages lit the circuit, a prelude to the spectacular fireworks display that brought the day to an end.

Photographic Post Script

A few years ago the PistonClick team visited the Race Performance HQ to have a look round the set up. Running a Ford Mustang in the British GT Championships and a Ford Puma in the MSN Circuit Rally Championship there was plenty of performance metal to drool over. We kind of kept in contact with the team who penned a few words about their experience of Round One.

Ryan Connolly and his team in the 2018/19 Class winning Ford Puma burnt some serious midnight oil to make round 1. The Pooma made the trip from Lincolnshire to Oulton Park with less than a mile on the clock after her rebuild as she rolled into SS1. 

Within 150m a contact in the EPAS failed so we had no power steering for the stage and then to add insult to injury, a bonnet pin hadn’t been clicked over correctly which Chris Allen duly jumped out to sort but we lost well over a minute in doing so. 

As such - the fight was on and we were very much on for the win after reeling in the competition up until SS7 when an “enthusiastic” entry into the Water Splash sent dirty water everywhere inside the car, including the windscreen and unable to see, defeat had to be conceded and we finished P2 by only 16 seconds - Bravo to Tom and Robert in the #53 Honda Civic Type R FN2 for the win! 

However - Class P2 and P37 Overall will take us nicely back home to Cadwell Park where we can assure you all - we will be very much bringing the noise… 

Thank you as always to the RACE Team on event and all of our partners. 

Other Class winners were: Barry Morris/Marc Fowler (Darrian T90 GTR+ ), Josh Payton/Jamie Vaughan (Ford Escort Mk II), Christopher Newton/Anthony Newton (Vauxhall Nova), Alex Cannon/Alan Carfrae (Ford Fiesta R2), Greg Williams/Richard Edwards (Subaru Impreza), Kimberley Stuart Mather/Yvonne Elizabeth Mather (Sunbeam Lotus)...

and Paul Gorge/Daniel Hurst (Mazda MX5).

There are seven more events scheduled for the Motorsport News Circuit Rally Championship due to take place at venues around the country. PistonClick will be at the next round The NHMC Cadwell Park Stages.

For more details about the following rounds you can visit msnrallychamp.co.uk/calendar/