JOHN STEVENS

 My first memory of going to watch a rally is way back in the 80’s. Me and my dad (BARRIE) and his mate (ROD CLARK) went to watch the then LOMBARD R.A.C. when it was a five day rally. I also went with them when they were servicing for others. We went all over the place, North and south Wales, all over Yorkshire.
My dad and rod also did road rallying with a mini they built on the farm that we lived on at that time. A few late nights to be had there too. Some good results as well.
 
Moving on a few years and I would be helping out on the DUKERIES RALLY in 1995. Putting straw bales out for the stages. This is when I started marshalling and getting more involved with the organising side of rallying. This was when I went on to the DUKERIES MOTOR CLUB committee, and so my rallying life was starting to get busy. Soon after that I bought my first escort mk2 shell from a mate in the village. It took me three years to build and in May 1999 we took it to swinderby for its first outing. This was a 1600cc crossflow engined car, which was a basic clubman spec shell. The car had to be re-shelled after John rolled it playing about in a field. (Testing) lol. John's 1st Escort was rallied from 1999-2004.
 
Then in 2005 John built a 205 gti 1.6 this to be a clubman spec car. John just wanted to see if front wheel drive was faster and used this till end of 2007.
Then in late 2007 John started his latest car which is another mk2 but this time to a bit better spec than his 1st one.

This car has a 2.0L 16v Vauxhall engine, clubman gp4 spec shell. Seam welded, turreted, alloy arched, 5 linked atlas axle. 5.1 l.s.d diff. with all the usual trimmings.
In the cars 1st year it has competed on 4 events with John driving, this resulted in two 3rd in classes and one 1st in class.
Not bad for first time out in a new car and 4 years away from rear wheel drive. It's the only way to rally.

Hopefully this year (09) will be even better, got nine events planed including going to The Tour of Mull. Which John says is the Best Rally in the World. We had a great year in 2009 with some good results and lots of pictures which can be viewed on the results and gallery pages of this website.

Here’s looking forward to 2010

JOHN IS ALWAYS LOOKING FOR A PAYING CO-DRIVE