From Dashboard in 1984 -

THE AUDI SPORT NATIONAL RALLY 20th OCTOBER 1984

Well what a finish to the Shell Oils / Autosport National Rally Championship. An event put on so splendidly by a well deserving team of organisers of Wolverhampton and South Staffs Car Club. The Rally of 87 crews left the sunny seaside resort of Aberystwyth early Saturday morning into a damp Pantperthog.

Two and a half miles in, the Rally found its first victim in the TR7 of Dave Lisle and girlfriend Helen Evans who, when ascending the long straight, made contact with the high, left hand bank resulting in the car sliding on its roof for a matter of yards. Second car club retirement was that of Mick Hearn and Phil Gooch who thought they could do a better job and rolled down an embankment, taking most of the damage to the roof and bonnet wings.

Derek Bridgen and Neil Howell's Sunbeam also had a visit to the scenery colliding with a bank, but only to lose 3 or-4 mins. Phil Andrews and Trevor Jones by now were well on their way up the leader board climbing to 35 overall. Nick Luckett and Paul Cooper were also moving up, together with Mara man Geoff Williams accompanied by Irishman Sean Kelly. Chris Arnold, co-driven by John Ambler disappeared down a ditch on stage 5, after struggling to retrieve the car they were soon on their way again, missing a couple of stages in the process, then finally retirng with clutch failure. As far as the National Rally Championship is concerned, this was won by Phil Collins in this final round, just ahead of Dai Llewellen. This meant that overall the British National Rally Champion of 1984 is Dai, a very popular winner judging by the amount of Welsh fans of his cheering at the prizegiving on Saturday evening. Dai, co-driver Roger Evans and Service crew celebrated on Saturday night / Sunday morning by getting very rowdy in the Belle Vue Hotel.

If you can imagine two members of their Service crew in the bar, imitating Dai and Roger by sitting in two chairs next to each other as though they were in the rally car. Audi sport ties were used as seat belts, a large whisky bottle was used as gearstick, an ashtray as a steering wheel, shoes as foot pedals. The co-driver had pace-notes, a marshall appeared with a large calculator borrowed from reception acting as the clock.

5-4-3-2-1-GO ! They were off, pacenotes being called, FLAT 200, 50 RIGHT, FLAT 100, 90 LEFT COULD BE TIGHT, both driver and co-driver leant over to the right as they tackled this tight corner looking very realistic, people roaring with laughter, 150 YUMP as crew junp leaving their seats in the process. Into 90 RIGHT as they try to cope they hit the bank and roll all over the floor. All in all it created a great atmosphere in the bar with a lot of drunken bodies around the place. It was a hell of a piss up.

RESULTS…

1st o/a MALCOLM WILSON Quattro

2nd o/a MICHELE MOUTON Quattro

3rd o/a PER EKLUND Celica turbo

CAR CLUB MEMBERS.

31st o/a PHIL ANDREWS - TREVOR JONES

48th o/a NICK LUCKETT - PAUL COOPER

46th o/a GEOFF WILLIAMS -

55th o/a DEREK BRIDGEN - NEIL HOWELLS

SHELL AUTO SPORT CHAMPIONSHIP

1st o/a DAI LLEWELLEN - ROGER EVANS

2nd o/a PHIL COLLINS - ROGER FREEMAN

5rd o/a LOUISE AITKEN - ELLEN MORGAN.