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Toyota Rally News |
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07/10/2011 - New Event coming to Royal Bath & West Showground There is a new televised two day event the Regency Stage Rally being organised by Weston-Super-Mare Motor Club at the Showground. This venue should make for some very interesting Stage layouts for the Corolla incorporating a small jump and two night stages. www.regencystages.com
25/09/2011 - Patriot Stages
The Team have just returned from the Bob Dowen Patriot Stage Rally another MSA Asphalt Championship round. The conditions were challenging and the Corolla finished 7th overall and 2nd in Class. See Rally Reports for more details and don't forget Motors TV coverage on 29th October 10.35pm 17/09/2011 - Castle Combe Rally
Once again the GT4OC invited us to represent them on their Stand with the Celica st185. Unfortunately, the weather was not so gracious this year and amongst the heavy rain showers Gary took part in demonstration runs on the main race circuit and did a crowd pleasing display of donuts on the Feature Stage!! There is a scheduled TV programme of Rally Day on Motors TV on 12th October 20.00pm. 25/06/11 - Goodwood Festival of Speed Gary has been asked by Toyota Europe to drive an ex-Carlos Sainz Celica st185 on the Forest Stage at this years Festival of Speed. This car was built in 1992, and first used by Armin Schwartz on the 1992 Acropolis Rally, where it famously crashed on the same corner as the sister car of Marku Alen (Alen's car landed on top of this one). It was then repaired and used by Carlos Sainz to finish in 3rd place on 1992 Rally of Australia and helped him to secure the 1992 World Rally Championship for drivers. It competed in Repsol colours of white and red, (Carlos Sainz's personal sponsors). After many years of competing in his own st185, Gary is very much looking forward to driving this famous car. 17/18th June - Rally of the Midlands 2011
The Corolla at the Ceremonial Finish in Bedworth Town Centre. Gary and Paul completed all of the 24 Special Stages and at that point they believed they'd come 4th Overall unfortunately the fuel pump issues they'd encountered on the road section had taken them too long to sort out and when the final results came in they were declared OTL. See Rally Reports for full details. 28/05/11 - Corolla Wins Launch Motorsport Stages
Gary and Paul returned to one on their favourite venues Down Ampney and took top honours. It is the fourth time that the pair have won this Rally organised by Emcos Motor Club. See Rally Reports for full details. (Picture taken by EDP Photography). 16/03/11 - Flying High at the Tour of Epynt
The Team has just returned from the first round of the MSA Championship on the Epynt Ranges in Wales. A pleasing result 18th overall and 3rd in Class. See Rally Reports for full details.
21/02/11 - Kynaston Autos Stage Rally - 2nd Overall
After overcoming several earlier problems on the morning stages, the Team set some good stage times and pulled back in the afternoon finishing in 2nd place. See Rally Reports for full details. 10/02/11 - Final Test before opening round of MSA National Championship.
The Team have decided to enter the Corolla WRC in the Kynaston Auto Services Rally at Smeatharpe three weeks prior to the 1st round of the MSA Championship the Tour of Epynt. 04/02/11 - Regency Stages Postponed Just received a Press Release that sadly the Regency Stages has had to be postponed until later in the year. This is unfortunate as we were all looking forward to tackling this new event which was on our doorstep! Lets hope the revised date doesn't clash with any of our planned MSA rounds. 11/01/11 - Looking Ahead! The Events page has now been updated for the 2011 season which you will note includes six rounds of the MSA National Asphalt Rally Championship. This is the main area that we wish to focus on but there will also be some other events added along the way - so keep watching!! 01/01/11 - HAPPY NEW YEAR to all our friends and supporters - Lets hope it's a good one! 26/09/10 - Podium Finish at Patriot Stages
The penultimate round of the MSA Asphalt Rally Championship turned out to be a very successful day for the Team. Gary and Paul brought the Corolla home third overall despite an off on stage one and Paul scored maximum MSA Championship points as rally winner Simon Mauger's co-driver was not registered for the championship. The recent modifications to the rear suspension paid off as the car felt much more stable. See Rally Reports for full details. 18/09/10 - Castle Combe Rally Day
We have just returned after a very enjoyable day at the Castle Combe Race Circuit in Wiltshire. We were invited by the event organisers to take part in their Feature Stage and also by the GT4 Owners Club to put our Celica onto their stand and lead a procession around the race circuit along with 20 other GT4's. There was also a small Rally Stage on the perimeter road where we were able to let our service crew experience some in-car conditions and for Paul to see the Celica in action from a spectators point of view! 30/08/10 - Treacherous Weather Conditions on Epynt Ranges but Corolla takes Class win. Well the morning certainly wasn't a pleasant experience - it poured! Tyre choice ??? Whatever we chose you could guarantee that by the time you got to the stage the weather would have changed (in fact on average it yo-yo'd all morning between sun, drizzle and stair rods!). Anyway despite all of this the weather did brighten up and we came away with a Class win and Gary receiving the John Horton Motorsport Management 'Star Drive' salver at the awards ceremony. See Rally Reports for full details. 27/08/10 - Testing Times! With the car still having some handling difficulties a Test session was arranged in Tregaron Wales with Phil Roach and Graham Middleton to try and improve the 'set-up' prior to the Mewla Rally at the weekend. After lowering the car and making some other adjustments the car handled much better and we headed off to the Builth Wells. 16/08/10 - Team return from Richard Burns Memorial Rally After a 7 hour journey the Team finally arrived at RAF Marham for the RBMR. With the clutch problem identified and new seals fitted we were hoping for of a good weekend. See Rally Reports for full details. 01/08/10 Clutch Problems Force Early Retirement First Outing for Corolla WRC
Unfortunately, we had to make the decision to withdraw the Corolla from the Fat Albert Stages after Stage 7 with clutch problems rather than risk causing damage to the transmission. However, we had managed to complete more than 50 Stage miles which gave us the opportunity to 'Test' and adjust settings throughout the day. After a very slow Stage 1 time (where the car stalled at a hairpin and wouldn't restart), we found ourselves in 24th position but were pleased to have made up time and were lying 6th overall when we retired. This was the first time the car had been driven at pace since the build so we were always expecting teething problems. For a view from Paul Hollingham's side of the car see Rally Reports
26/07/10 - First Event - Fat Albert Stages 31st July. Gary and Paul are planning to use the new Corolla WRC for the first time this weekend on the Fat Albert Stages at Keevil in Wiltshire. The event has attracted a strong entry of 90 crews including four WRC cars and a host of other top class Escorts, Subaru's and Mitsubishi's. The Team has been seeded at No. 4 and the plan is to use this event to try and learn as much as possible about the new car and test different set-ups throughout the day. 21/07/10 - Corolla WRC Log Booked and New Registration assigned. Today has been the day that our two year project finally became reality. After what once seemed like a crazy idea that Gary had to drive to the Czech Republic to collect the ex-Henning Solberg WRC car then do numerous trips across to France, Belgium, Germany and Holland collecting the various parts required to do the rebuild ......................she's here!
07/07/10 - Goodwood Festival of Speed 2010 The Rally Team were delighted to be asked again by Toyota Europe to represent the Celica st185 Gt4 on their stand at this years Festival of Speed. The Celica was put into full original Castrol livery prior to the Goodwood event.
The event hosted by Lord March has a wonderful atmosphere and attracts over 150,000 spectators who come to see World class drivers and National Champions along with the hundreds of cars and bikes .The Festival is set within the grounds of Goodwood House (Lord March's home) and is divided into various sections, with the infamous Hill Climb which goes straight past the front of Goodwood House and proceeds up to the Top Paddock where the Rally Stage can be found. This event is 'a must' for any Motorsport enthusiast.
This year the 'Toyota Line-Up' was as follows:- Celica st205 owned and driven by Mark Courtney, Ernst Kopp's Toyota Celica Twincam Turbo (driven by himself and former World Rally Champion BjÖrn Waldegard), Corolla WRC owned by twice British Champion Johnny Milner (driven by himself and three times British Champion Mark Higgins), Corolla WRC owned and driven by John Reid from Ireland and finally a Dakar Rally Land Cruiser driven by Frenchman Ronan Chabot.
But there was more to the festival than socialising and although the Rally Stage was short it was certainly very demanding with hairpins, flowing corners, gradients and even a jump! This meant that once again we were given the opportunity to do demonstration runs on the 1.7 mile Forest Stage which was designed by Hannu Mikkola in 2006. Although the runs are not meant to be competitive - try telling that to the drivers!
30/05/10 - Emcos Stage Rally Despite setting fastest times on the first three stages and leading the event by 22 seconds the Toyota Celica wasn't able to start the fourth stage due to gearbox problems and the crew were forced to retire. High hopes had been set to see if the Celica could win this event for the fourth consecutive year but sadly it wasn't meant to be. See Rally Reports for full details. 10/05/10 |
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Picture taken by Alix Jones
picture by Teltphotography 
picture courtesy of Burnham on Sea Newspaper
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