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| Don Barrow Autobiography - Special Stage 3 - 1969 - 1973 |
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1969 was a Mixed type of year, Jim had several Saturday weddings to attend which therefore reduced the number of events we could compete on. However I managed to team up with various other drivers in order to keep the MN points alive. Round 3 The Seven Dales Rally with JB was our first run and prior to this the Country had been covered in heavy snow. At the start of the week conditions were no better and I was imagining running in the first 3 cars on Elvington airfield, covered with 2-3 inches of snow. I telephoned Jim and asked him to contact the organisers to say that he would be on a tight schedule in making the Saturday morning start and could we run in the mid to late thirties. Sure enough this paid off, the airfields were just about drivable at speed by the time we arrived at number 37; this ploy enabled us to finish 2nd overall. I competed on 15 of the 19 MN Rallies with 4 outright wins, together with other National and International events navigating a variety of drivers that included JB, Ian Harwood, John Bloxham and John Sprinzel. I lost out on winning the MN Championship again, by one point only ! Halfway through the year Jim's own Escort Twin Cam was re-shelled with a big winged body. |
| And in between competing at weekends I was also trying to mould the plastic prototype of my Don Barrow Light - Map Magnifier, however this took some 2-3 years to perfect in what spare time I could find. |
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We often upset folk on Rallies especially at the Finish because we always Rallied in sports coat, collar & tie, but of course we occasionally got a bit of mud on our clothes, which was quickly removed with Jim's onboard clothes brush.
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| Motoring News presentation, London. - Don Barrow, John Seal (Castrol), Nigel Raeburn, George Hill - all signing our 'Nineteen to the Dozen' books. It's author Eddie Green, was a true Rally enthusiast who followed the circus around the Countryside wherever the events took him. His book 'Nineteen to the Dozen' is now a sought after Motorsports collectors item and I am amazed at some of the prices asked. It gives a good reflection of what Rallying was all about in the 1960's, although it has a major mistake in naming Phil Simister as the winning Driver for 1964, when in fact it was my Driver, Reg McBride. I know because I Navigated for both of them and Phil was not the type to moan and groan, especially when it was to his advantage!
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Sadly Eddie Green passed away in May 2003
| 1970 saw another great year with Jim Bullough in his Westune Ford MK1 Escort Twin cam with many wins once again. A lot of the Motoring News stories of 1970 can be read in Peter Robinson's excellent book called Memory Lanes which spotlights the era of Motoring News Rallies between the years of 1970 - 1973, of which Jim and I feature in the results on a lot of the events.
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| Mid way through the 1970 season the second Escort Twin Cam was now stabled at BVRT, British Vita Racing Team HQ, at Littleborough and was by now, getting a bit tired due to overwork, hence we used Norman Grimshaw's, of Squadra Budino Nero's fame, very potent BVRT 3 Litre Capri on a couple of occasions. Norman's Capri was one of Harry Ratcliffe's test beds for BVRTs specialised Capri tuning conversions and Jim's Twin Cam was the mobile competition test bed for the new BDA engine that BVRT were developing for Ford. There were lots of problems culminating in a few non-starts and retirements and thanks to Norman we could sometimes use his Capri.
That's what being called 'Lucky Jim' does for you. |
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Norman Grimshaw  Squadra Budino Nero (Team Black Pudding) |
| Around October time a drastic situation arose when a major problem occurred on the previous week-end`s 'MN' event. We had already won the 1970 BTRDA Gold Star Championship, and needed another car for the coming week-end. BVRT British Vita Racing Team's Competition Manager Brian Gillibrand, managed to persuade Ford's Competion dept to part with an ex-works car (FTW 44H) which was residing in France. This was acquired and readied all within the week, still sporting it's BP green/yellow livery. The 'MN' Championship all hinged on the last Club event of the year, The Shenstone Rally, which was run on my Home patch in Derbyshire. If we could produce a win, the Championship would be ours again. And after some 200 miles of hectic motoring we secured our goal by a very convincing margin, thus winning the coveted Crown of the era. This being my 4th 'MN' Championship Win, within a ten-year period, I was over the moon. However we came unstuck on the RAC after clobbering a log pile and bending the rear axle casing. Jim commented at the time, that he couldn't drive the car properly because it was the wrong colour! He had it re-painted Blue and White for 1971 and robbed the car of its good looking originality.
Peter Robinson has written a brilliant book - the History of the 1970, 1971, 1972 & 1973 |
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| At the Vista Lounge on the top floor of the towering Castrol House, the awards were presented for the 1970 Motoring News / Castrol Rally Championship. 1st Driver - Jim Bullough : 1st Navigator - Don Barrow |
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1971, here again, this was another blank period of which I cannot remember much about, but I seem to remember that we were both getting a bit tired of trying to emulate our past performances. It was becoming so hard to win events and Championships. But it was even harder trying to achieve the same level of performance, of which we were expected to attain, time and time again. Jim slimmed down the number of events we competed on and our interest started to fade. On the 1971 RAC Rally with our car in British Vita colours and motives, we were posing for a photo for Autosport when the photographer asked, "who's sign written your car" why? we asked, it stated across the top of both front wings, 'Prepaired by British Vita Racing', how embarrassing, what a spelling mistake! So everytime we got out of the car Jim made a bee line to stand in front of the mis spelled word. Towards the end of the year I was being tempted by Barrie 'Whizzo' Williams - whom I had successfully navigated for on several previous occasions - to join DTV (unpaid of course) in pioneering the, wait for it, Vauxhall 'Firenza'. By this time I had managed to produce some moulds on my lathe and could successfully build my Don Barrow Light - Map Magnifier and they went on sale around this era in it's grey colour form for about £5.00. I also did a couple of rallies with David Cowan in his Escort Twin Cam, the first rally we retired in Wales with a cam belt problem, the second was also a retirement on the Devils Own Rally in the Lake District with an inversion in a narrow lane. David's dad, Les lived just North of Manchester and so that I could recognise their house he said he would leave his car parked on the roadway, "just look out for the registation number LES 777" he said, well sure enough it was there. On driving in I could see the rally car LES 7 and when I was ringing the front door bell I caught sight of a MK1 Austin Healey Sprite with a registration plate, wait for it, MRS 777. Yes you have guessed it, Les was a right comedian. |
| 1972 was a fraught year, my hair was beginning to turn grey, the whole set up at DTV was run on a shoestring and even finishes were hard to come by. Our entry on the Welsh International had to be cancelled on the morning of the event due to a technical problem. It turned out that the day before, the rally cars had been driven onto the workshop ramps while they re-painted the garage floor, guess what? the paint hadn't dried, so rather than 'bugger' the floor up, they scrubbed the entries! I also remember on the Scottish International that the bare floor pan under my feet started to split along the line of the chassis rail. This crack grew longer and wider as the event unfolded, filling the cockpit with clouds of dust, I kept asking for this to be welded at the service points, but to no avail. However I delivered a final ultimatum regarding this work, and hey presto, the work was scheduled for a lunch halt service. On climbing back into the car I surveyed the repair, which consisted of a length of tank tape run over the split, I ask you? On the Manx International (Pace Notes with 'Whizzo' 'Phew') we had to use the same 'make do` fuel gauge that we had used on the Scottish, which consisted of a garden cane as a 'dip-stick`. Needless to say we ran out of fuel at about 02.00hrs in the middle of a desolate stage. 'Whizzo' stood on the roof, shouting across the valley for petrol, 15 minutes later we were on our way. 'Whizzo' also mentioned about what he was going to do with the 'dip-stick` when he got back to Douglas! I totally agreed with him.
The RAC was another epic affair, having vigorously warmed up a set of racing tyres for the last 6 miles, prior to entering the Special Stage in Bradford sewage works, can you imagine my thoughts when there was a 30 minute delay on the start line! During this delay it also rained, so with a wet road on cold racers, away we sped. However as I had predicted, 'Whizzo' caused another 30 minute delay when he terminally assaulted a solid oak tree at a fair rate of knots. We were lucky not to have drowned to death in the previous day's outflow of the population of Bradford. Needless to say a near wasted year all round.
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 To read all about the life of Whizzo Williams in this hilarious book, written by Paul Lawrence, CLICK here. After you have read Whizzo's book you will probably agree that with me that - as Oscars are awarded to the most outstanding acting performances - if there ever was an annual Oscar award presented by the International Panel Beaters Association for the best performance in bending the most motor cars, Whizzo would probably have won several. |
| The only highlight of the year was winning the Knowldale Car Clubs, Mini-Miglia Rally in 'Whizzos' road going Opel Manta, the organisers were sworn to secrecy because Whizzo didn't want his Father to find out. The event was a round in the Mexico Championship and we 'waltzed' away literally with an emphatic win. We were shown as Krebbs and Goldfinger on the entry list running at No 13 and nobody knew it was us until the first petrol halt when all was revealed.
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1973 saw me teaming up with Eric Jackson of 'Round the World' fame in his MK1 BDA Escort, we won our first event the Dukeries, a BTRDA Stage Rally, sponsored by the Mansfield Observer, together with various other events. I was having a tough time in motivating myself for each event and needless to say I was finding it hard to live up to my usual standards. In a nutshell I wanted to finish Rallying, I simply hated Stage events and enough was enough. |
| However our next event was the Chieftan Rally, another Stage event which I was not looking forward to. In preparation I noticed on my old 1967 'MN' map, that on Salisbury Plain I had written 'Caution mud on Road' at a point aptly called 'Bulbarrow'. I thought this surely must be clear by now? Therefore I ignored my markings! We were running as the first car on the road on this rain soaked stage, a long straight of 2-3 miles into a long slight right (reading off the map) and over a long slight crest. As the crest came rapidly into sight, I was gripped with fear. The road was covered with about 9 inches of mud from a tank manoeuvre the night before and there were two, what looked like bicycle tyre tracks which the Clerk of the Course's car had made. We had been totally flat up to this point in a nicely set up drift, if Eric had lifted it would have increased the drift, if he had braked it would have been far worse. I knew this was going to be a big accident. God knows what he did, I am sure it would have been the right decision. The car apparently launched itself airborne and started to cartwheel end over end, everything flew off and out of the car, and I remember saying to myself 'push like hell with both my hands and my feet onto the dash and bulkhead' in order to keep my limbs inside the cockpit. It eventually landed the correct way up. Eric was in a bad way and fortunately a Doctor who saw the accident quickly arrived, he reckoned the car had somersaulted backwards some six to seven times. He assessed the situation and we carefully lifted Eric into the Doc's car, who then took him to the Stage Finish to await an ambulance. It turned out that he had two broken ribs and two crushed vertebrae. As for the poor 'motor' Nice one Eric, one of your best! I had been looking for a decent excuse to pack up Rallying and this was it! Much against my daughter's and son's ego's, they used to revel in the limelight of seeing a constant flow of competitive machinery in the driveway. I never did another Rally until 1986. It has got to be said that Rally Navigating has been the highlight of my life, a test of one's durability and great initiative, to say the least. Thank God for Roll Cages ! |
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International + 44 1625 429092between 09.30 - 17.00 hrs UK time
Monday - Friday
Motoring News Rally Champion 1963 ~ 1964 ~ 1967 ~ 1970 • RAC Rally Champion 1967
BTRDA Gold Star Rally Champion 1970 • BTRDA Silver Star Rally Champion 1962 ~ 1963 ~ 1967
Don Barrow the 'King of the Navigators' [Eric Bailey - Motoring Correspondent - The Daily Telegraph 16/12/95] © Copyright Don Barrow 1999 - 2012
However, other Copyrighted images used, are the sole Copyright of their rightful owners and are used as 'Free use' images.