Winning in the RS500 , October 2020
five-day Roger Albert Clark Rally . Over a route that pitted crews against the best of the UK forests roads , including the notorious ‘ killer ’ Kielder forest in Northumberland , David and co-driver Keith Ashley kept out of trouble and finished 44th from the 68 finishers in the historic section of the rally .
“ We ’ ve probably done around 10 rallies over the last two or three years . But we didn ’ t do a rally at all last year . I did the Roger Albert Clark Rally at the
end of 2019 and haven ’ t done anything since . I ’ ll do that again this year in the Escort Mk2 . It looks like being quite a busy year because I ’ m also going to be rallying a Ford Fiesta R5 and I think that will be enough for me .”
Tomlin is stepping up to a state-ofthe-art four-wheel drive turbocharged Ford Fiesta R5 this season to contest the Pirelli Welsh National Rally Championship and selected rounds of the British Rally Championship , including the Nicky Grist Stages in July and the Cambrian Rally at the end of October .
By competing at this level , David will pit himself against some of the best rally drivers in the country . “ I ’ m just an amateur ,” he said . “ But it will be good to see how close we can get to the top guys . It doesn ’ t look like there will be much rallying until June or July . We ’ ve given the car a run on gravel roads and I felt at home in it . If you point it in the right direction it seems to go in that direction .”
The car , registered RIG 1213 , was formerly with rally preparation expert Dom Buckley and has done less than 30 rallies in four seasons , notably in the hands of Alastair Fisher in Ireland and several drivers in the Scottish Championship . It is going to be quite a season of racing and rallying and David plans to return to his Ford Escort Mk2 in late November for another crack at the Roger Albert Clark Rally . As he admits : ‘ That ’ ll probably be about enough !”
In the rain of the 2019 Silverstone Classic
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