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Tuthill’s European contingent has enjoyed another great weekend’s rallying, this time on the Ypres Rally: round five of the 2012 Belgian Historic Rally Championship.
We had two Porsche 911s on this year’s event: Glenn Janssens in the firebreathing 911 ‘dog box’ car, and Howard Redhouse, driving his first Tarmac rally and using his Viper Green car.
Glenn’s weekend started with a hiccup, after a gearbox concern led to a transmission swap after the Wednesday shakedown. The new transmission was a slightly longer ratio’d version of the first dog box.
The first three stages on Friday went smoothly, and by the end of stage three, Glenn was in front with a two-second lead over Frederique Delplace, and nine seconds over P3 friend and rival Wim Decock, also in a Porsche 911.
Day 2 brought trouble in stage 1 – a puncture 4 kms into a 28 km stage. There was no option but to change the wheel, which meant finishing in 58th position, 4 minutes down on the leader. From then on, Janssens set fastest time in every stage to finish P2 overall: an amazing comeback drive. Glenn was upset not to take the win, but Richard – a former winner in European Historics – was delighted with the performance.
“This was a champion’s drive. To come back from four minutes down and finish second overall – less than forty seconds off the leader – in this fiercely competitive series was mega. Glenn’s ability to manage his pace is coming on leaps and bounds, and it’s great to see a Tuthill car competing at the top of this championship.
“Ypres was Howard Redhouse’s first-ever Tarmac rally and he rightly took time to find his groove. As he settled into the surface, the times came towards him and the car got faster and faster. On the final stage 14, Tuthill cars finished first and second: a delight for the team and a great result for Howard to hang on to Glenn’s much faster 911 and take 9th place overall.”
The next round of the Belgian Championship is Flanders, on September 7th. Should be another fun event and just across the Channel – would be great to see some British rally fans there!
