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Roskell rules the Manx Rally

Wed, 18 May 2022

The Manx Rally made a dramatic return to the British rallying calendar last weekend as Neil Roskell and Andrew Roughead secured a dominant victory behind the wheel of their Ford Fiesta R5.

The world-class Isle of Man roads would play host to 14 stages and over 100 competitive miles of flat-out rallying action and it would be Roskell that ruled the top of the leader board for all but one stage of the rally, securing a winning margin of a staggering 4 minutes and 37 seconds.

The fight for the podium positions was less clear cut however, with George Collister/Ian Postlethwaite and Rory McCann/Paul McCann battling it out for the honour of being runner up, with Collister clinching second place on the final stage of the rally in his BMW E30 328i. The McCann’s couldn’t hold off their charging fellow Manxman, to claim third place in their mighty Honda Civic.

After being forced to cancel the 2020 and 2021 editions of the event due to the pandemic, event organisers Manx Auto Sport welcomed a new look to the 2022 edition of the rally and were joined by FIA ERC Celtic Trophy, HRCR Stage Masters Historic Stage Rally Challenge, the Welsh Historic Rally Championship, and the ANWCC Rally Championship.

Famous stages such as Little London, Tholt-e-Will and Druidale offered up a classic Manx Rally flavour, as did four runs over the Baldwin’s to challenge even the most experienced crews.

But there was drama even before the event had started for number one seeds Jason Pritchard and Phil Clarke. After the Friday morning's shakedown test, designed to allow crews to acclimatise to the unique Manx roads, Pritchard’s impressive Ford Focus WRC was parked up at the roadside with an engine tensioner failure, forcing the five-time event winner out of the rally without completing a single competitive stage.

It would be Simon Bowen/Craig Simkiss who stole the early march on proceedings with the fastest time over ‘Back of the Moon 1’, opening a one-second margin over Roskell. Their Fiesta S2000T entered a tit-for-tat battle for stage wins with Roskell’s R5 example but as darkness fell on Friday night, sadly Bowen would be forced to retire with engine failure.

After the six stages on Friday night, Roskell had already opened over a minute gap to his nearest chasers Gavin Edwards/Caron Tomlinson in their Ford Escort MK2 with McCann firing in a scintillating time over the final Druidale test in the dark, winning the stage and taking third in the process, despite having much less horsepower than his rivals.

Saturday offered the bulk of the mileage with four stages repeated and there was no stopping Roskell. Four stage wins gave the 2022 Motorsport News Circuit Rally Champion the coveted Manx Rally win by an impressive margin to stamp his name on the rally trophy for the first time.

“I`m made up with first overall,” said Roskell.

“We had a great pace from the start battling with Simon [Bowen] on Friday evening until sadly he blew his engine. We went on through Friday and Saturday with the attitude to manage our lead and fetch it home to get a finish. Andrew [Roughead] did a sterling job all weekend as usual. [Thanks to] ATM Engineering for keeping the car running sweet all weekend and to Andy Morrison for giving up his time to come and help with the car. Next up, Jim Clark Rally in two weeks”.
 
Collister had enjoyed a consistent rally in his BMW, never out of the top ten all event long, his pace came alive on Saturday’s daylight stages to begin to close in on McCann. A late lunge on the final Tholt-Y-Will test saw him take six seconds out of the Honda driver to take a last-gasp second place in fine style.
 
Stewart Morrison/Kerrie Macgillivray started as 25 seeds but had a progressive weekend to take fourth place in their Ford Escort MK2, second-fastest stage time on stage ten a sign of their increase in speed. Richard Fishleigh/Jason McCullough sealed fifth place in their similar machine and rounded out their rally with a final stage fastest time.

Outside of the top three, Manx honours were also upheld by Gary Leece/Sarah Coole in sixth behind the wheel of their Ford Escort and Andrew Dudgeon/Shannon Bridson in their Honda Civic taking ninth place overall.

Pre-event favourites Martyn Jones and Llion Williams suffered a myriad of issues in their Nova, with a burst brake pipe on Friday night forcing them out on day one. Despite re-starting on Saturday, they would only complete one test before calling it a day. Steven Ormond-Smith/Adam Yates were running third overall overnight before damage to their Mitsubishi Evo forced them out of the rally on the first daylight stage on Saturday.

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