David Butler - Rallying my MGB

Rallying - My beloved MGB

When I converted the left hand drive MGB from race trim to a major rebuild for historic rallying I wanted it in the original factory colours of red and white.

The MGB in unusually pristine condition about to go up to Leeds for the start of the RAC Historic Rally.

Below - Sideways on opposite lock especially for the camera man who gave us the thumbs up for the "pose" on the Scottish Rally.

Below My beloved MGB came out to play in many guises - this is the car in rally format on the RAC International Historic Rally 1997 on an incident packed Special Stage at Woburn.

We won our class but only after other class contenders, two Porshes and a Lotus Cortina, all ended up in the lake at a blind S bend on the Woburn stage.

We avoided a ducking as we could actually see the Lotus on top of one of the Porsches! Still, if you don`t finish you can`t win!

The Keilder Forest stage was at the time the longest stage on any World Championship Rally (37 miles), and unbelievably we only slid off once on the ice covered stage.

I should know that where there is a large clutch of spectators at the bottom of this hill they are there for a reason. To watch the fun!

They cheered as we slid on solid ice from top to bottom and into the snow drift and then very efficiently lifted us out and pushed us on our way.

This was a stage around the Croft circuit, early morning and it was solid sheet ice all the way around.

First to go was Jimmy McRae in his Porsche, away from the line he immediately put the two offside wheels on the grass on the inside of the circuit and stayed that way throughout the circuit stage. Very smart we all thought if Jimmy can get away with that we`ll all give it a try.

Well, one is not a McRae, but I did only go off three times, repositioned no end of straw bales, finished the stage and moved up ten places!

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