Busy two weekends for Cruttenden

Joe Cruttenden's Nissan Micra

Three Rally's, in three countries, in the last two weekends, saw Newhey rally co-driver Joe Cruttenden, come away with some good results.

On the Friday 18 June, Joe competed alongside Cambridge driver Lewis Roper, on the two day 'Rally of the Midlands' in their Rally4Real/ MDS Towbars supported Nissan Micra. After their success in the car on the previous rally, the pair had high hopes of a good result on the Hinkley based event.

The event was a round of the MSA tarmac championship, and used stages in the Arbury Hall stately home, Bramcote Army base, Mallory racing circuit and The governments MIRA test track.

Running the smallest engine car in the event and up against World rally cars, the pair set some impressive times, including a 17th fastest time on one stage.

“The Micra is very reliable and nippy round some of the tight stages,” commented Cruttenden.

The pair went on to finish sixth in class, an excellent showing against some far more powerful machinery and now lead the MSA Rally First Tarmac championship.

Following the Rally of the Midlands, Joe headed down to South Wales to compete on the Mid Summer Stages, at Cearwent army training centre. This time Cruttenden was co driving for young Warwickshire drive Matthew Jackson.

“Matthew asked me a few months ago to navigate for him before I knew I was doing an event the day before, and after watching him last year in the Junior Championship I was very impressed” Cruttenden continued, “We had a good day, plenty of laughs and a few hairy moments, at one point he almost rolled the car”.

The pair went on to finish 3rd in class, picking up Mathews first top three result in his rallying career

At the weekend Joe headed North to compete in the Scottish Rally, running around the forests of Dumfries and Galloway.

Joe this time was sat alongside Stockport driver, Rick Williams in his 1600 Mark 1 Escort. As it was the cars first outing since having an full engine rebuild and Rick's first rally in 3 months the pair set off to at a steady pace.

“The dust was horrific,” said Cruttenden, “On one corner I had the window open as it was so hot in the car, the dust came through the open window and covered my stage notes, leaving me struggling to read them.”

On stage 3 the they suffered a broken clutch cable, “Luckily we were carrying a spare and manage to fit the it at the end of the stage, but by this time we had already dropped 5 minutes on stage and came within 6 minutes of being over the maximum time limit, “said Cruttenden.

“But the repair meant we were able to finish the event and sort out a few other issues on the car ready for Rick's next outing' he added.

Cruttenden’s next rally will be the Quinton Rally on the Army ranges of mid Wales next month.