18/06/07 The Speedsport Design Boconnoc Summer Stages Rally was cancelled at the last minute so the boys were gutted. After several trips throughout the UK to collect various parts of the Metro that had been serviced, all the effort was in vain and the car remains on axle stands at the moment.
02/06/07 Chris and Adrian have an entry to the Speedsport Design Boconnoc Summer Stages Rally. The event, held at the Boconnoc Estate near Lostwithiel on the 17th June uses a venue from the Tour of Cornwall to run a Multi Use Stage Rally at the venue for the first time. After setting some very fast stage times through this fabulous venue on the Tour, Chris is looking forward to a whole day on the winding lanes. Spectators are more than welcome at the event so come along and watch us in action and pop into the service area and say hello.
11/06/2007 We have had this video clip sat on our server for a while now and just realised it was there! This video clip is so relaxing and offers a few seconds of tranquility. It may be worth right-clicking over thehyperlink and saving the file before playing it but either way, make sure the sound is set nice and loud first as the sound track is a little quiet :-)
25/03/07 FIRST OVERALL was the absolutely FANTASTIC result on the 2007 Tour of Cornwall. After a good start, Chris and Duncan piled the pressure on and stretched a commanding lead on the longer stages at Predannack and Portreath. Great result lads.
24/03/07 Quick update on progress on the 2007 Tour of Cornwall. Chris and Duncan have had a fantastic start to the event and have finished the 4 Friday night stages in 3rd overall, just 9 seconds off the leading car. With the rally starting to really get underway when the cars reach the longer stages of Portreath and Predannack, we will be watching closely to see if they can grab the lead. COME ON LADS!!!
19/03/07 WE ARE BACK!! After a large number of hurried calls and far too many text messages, Chris and Adrian have decided to submit a late entry for the 2007 Tour of Cornwall rally. We will be out to play, in the 6R4 of course, on 23rd and 24th March. We haven't been out for ages, have missed it like mad and are looking for all the support we can get as we try to go one better than Adrian did on last year's event.
20/04/06 The 2006 Tour of Cornwall was an interesting event! With about a week to go, Chris and Adrian had to pull their entry when Chris started to get problems with his wrists and after a test session Chris realised that it would be painful to rally without getting the problem sorted first. Adrian opted for another hot seat for the weekend and where hotter than alongside the winner of the 2005 event - David Appleby. It was one hell of a weekend as the day before the event started, David travelled to Prodrive to collect a new car - a Subaru Impreza S10. 2nd overall was the end result and considering the two lads had never met before, let alone rallied together and David had never driven the car before, this was a fantastic result against the best opposition in the country.
Adrian's office for the 2006 Tour of Cornwall.
20/10/05 Sorry it has been a quiet summer for the website - thanks for your patience and we are back! If you follow rallying, you will be aware that there was the very real risk that the Metro 6R4 could have been banned from Club and National B events in the UK. With the majority of National A events being forest based and not well suited to the 6R4 and with International events not available as the 6R4 is no longer homologated, the future could be bleak. We have struggled to justify a large repair bill for wear and tear when the car could have such a limited lifespan left. We are now in the midst of final preparations to compete on the City of Truro Rally. Our last local event of the season, we want to give it hell (as always) and end our local season on a high. Beyond that, not sure on our plans for another event further afield before the end of the year.
01/07/05 We had a brilliant 3rd Overall on the recent Carnival Stages. The event, held at Dalton Barracks, Abingdon attracted some of the top Subaru competitors in the country and with such quick (and expensive!) cars, an overall result would always have been a challenge. To end the day 3rd after the bonnet broke and obscured our view on one stage (seriously - see a great image in the Gallery!!) was a great result.
23/05/05 FANTASTIC - Chris Dillow and Duncan Langford took a First Overall result by over 2 minutes on the TSH Stages, Portreath on 22nd May 2005. This is a truely brilliant result. Preparations are now underway for the Carnival Stages.
01/05/05 What a start to the 2005 season. The Tour of Cornwall was a real mixture of highs and lows and proved to be an odd start to the new year. We set some absolutely cracking times throughout the rally but lacked some consistency, which meant we were able to trade times with people like John Price, John Indri and even Steve Fleck but weren't quite able to stay on their pace over the entire rally. Retirement from a promising 7th overall was always going to hurt but we can look forward to some very competitive runs the rest of the year if our stage times on the Tour were anything to go by.
30/03/05 We are back! The lads have got their MG Metro 6R4 prepared and ready to go and are looking forward to a very competitive season. Next event is the Tour of Cornwall on the 9th and 10th April and apart from an MOT, the car is raring to go! More information on the Tour of Cornwall can be found 
here.
Finally, this website update also includes our long-awaited video gallery. At the moment, the clips are often rather large but it was decided to get the clips on the site, rather than wait until we have had a chance to reformat and compress them further. Sorry if they take a while to download, especially if you are not on broadband, but very soon we will be reducing the file sizes substantially!
20/01/05 Happy New Year from all the team! As the year starts, the Dales MG Metro 6R4 is in the workshop on axle stands and looks very sorry for itself. Preparations are well underway for the coming season although we presently have no idea when our next event will be. The breakage at the end of the last event has been traced and the broken bits removed. All the good ones have also been taken away for crack testing and are ready to return to action. With Chris getting used to the extra width of the Metro last season, the paintwork has taken a pounding so we are planning some cosmetic work too!
The picture below was taken by a local motorsport photographer, Alan Kettle. There are more of Alan's pictures in our Gallery section and he can be contacted from there to arrange to purchase any of his pictures of us or many other competitors, over a range of events throughout the region.
Chris and Adrian wait to start SS7 of the City of Truro in the darkness.
Chris is presently completing a shopping list for the various bits and bobs and the list and price keeps on growing! Come back and see us soon when we are planning to add some video clips of us in action, some photos of the car in bits and details of our proposed campaign for 2005.
30/11/04 What a fantastic event the City of Truro was! We led the rally at the start and were delighted to be right on the pace from the outset. A close battle with Steve and Yvonne Furzeland followed and we took time on SS3 before finally losing out to the Subaru WRC. Such was the pace of the competition, that the 3rd place crew were around 2 minutes adrift after just the first four stages! A snapped rear hub robbed us of a chance to really let rip on the night stages but we coaxed the car home for 2nd overall and 1st in class. An excellent ending to our first year with the Dales MG Metro 6R4.
Check out the rest of the site for our press release and very soon, some more photos and hopefully some video clips. We are presently looking for sponsors for the 2005 season and the more money we raise, the more events we can enter. Interested in getting involved with this exciting and very competitive rally team? Contact us to discuss how we can best work together.
10/11/04 Our next event is the City of Truro Rally, to be held at RAF Portreath, on Saturday 27th November. This is our last event of an eventful and very successful first season with our awesome MG Metro 6R4. After a string of very impressive results, we are keen to finish the season in style. The event is a special one for us. Chris and Adrian always go well at Portreath, Chris' dad, Paul, won the City of Truro many years ago and it is to be the only rally we enter this year with night stages. The ability to run in the darkness is a fabulous opportunity and one that takes us back to the night rallies when we first started competing together - if only we had the Metro in those days ;-)
18/10/04 Smeatharpe Stage, Honiton. It was the first time we had visited Smeatharpe and the place is great fun. A mixture of broken concrete and tarmac with mud over the top meant almost no grip at all and a lot of sideways travel! We had a great morning, setting a string of times inside the top 4. Sadly, it wasn't to be and a miss-fire that had been plaquing us all morning finally shut the engine down on stage 6 and we were forced into retirement. Never mind, this is our first retirement together in two years and we will strive to fix the car in time for the next event, the City of Truro Rally, to be held late in November at RAF Portreath. This will be our last event of the 2004 season and should be a great climax to an amazing first year with the MG Metro 6R4.
02/09/04 Smeatharpe Stages, near Honiton - we have just entered this rally and we are excited at the prospect of taking our Metro 6R4 to a venue we have never visited before. This is not a new event for our Metro though as its previous owner won this event in 2002! For more information on the event, click here and look in their What's On section.
26/07/04 Azimghur Stages, Colerne - the team set a scorching pace at this event and ended the day an impressive 3rd overall. For more information on the event, click here and also see our Press Release page for more details of our exploits.
27/06/04 TSH Stages, RAF Portreath - this event is best forgotten! With Adrian unable to compete due to family commitments, it was over to Duncan to climb into the hot seat alongside Chris. The lads were leading the event after two special stages but then disaster struck. A momentary brainfade (we aren't saying by who - well, OK then - Chris!!) and the lads took a wrong turn at a stage split and the resultant time penalty effectively ended their event. Chris and Duncan completed the special stage, packed up and went home.
16/06/04 What a weekend! If you have been visiting regularly to find out how the CAR-nival Stages went, sorry for the delay updating the site - lots to do after a very busy weekend. Chris and Adrian are delighted to have had what was described by the organisers as a "stonking drive" and to have ended the rally a fantastic 2nd Overall and best Sutton and Cheam Motor Club entrants. Our press release can be found elsewhere on this site and you will also find a heap of new pictures in the gallery and scattered across the site.
Chris and Adrian prepare to leave Service for the first Special Stage.
08/06/04 Preparations are well underway for the CARnival Stages this coming weekend. Work on the Metro is nearing completion and we have even found time to sort some long-standing jobs on our trailer! With Royal Cornwall this weekend, it will be a very early start for the team this Saturday as we make the trek North with two vans, a trailer and a rallycar! Pop back to the site soon to follow our progress!!
04/04/04 Wow - what a result! On our first outing with the Metro, we have just finished the Tour of Cornwall in 9th Overall and 2nd in Class B13. In our class, we were beaten only by John Price of Hereford, 10 times British Tarmac rally champion! It has been a fantastic weekend and we have had a lot of fun learning the new car - it is a steep learning curve and we have had some glitches along the way, but this is an excellent result to start with.
There is a copy of our press release in that section of the website but for a more light-hearted look at the weekend, click here.If you require Adobe Acrobat, please download it from here
The Metro being refuelled in Cornwall College
The Metro on the road back from Portreath after the last stage of the 2004 Tour of Cornwall
19/03/04 The team recently took their Metro 6R4 to Camborne, Pool, Redruth Technical College. The visit was arranged as part of the run-up to the Tour of Cornwall rally and enabled students on motoring courses at the college to see a rally car close-up and to learn more about the sport.
The afternoon was a great success and the Metro attracted a great deal of interest. The picture below shows a number of the students gathered around the engine bay, admiring the snug fit of the 2.5litre, V6 engine into the boot!!
... and this is what has attracted all the attention.....!!
... but one or two students did wonder where the engine had gone!!
12/03/04 Our entry for the Tour of Cornwall Rally has been accepted and preparations for the event continue in earnest. For more information on the Tour, please click here.
01/03/04 Welcome to our website - created and brought online today.
04/92 Our very first Tour of Cornwall - Chris managed not only to crash the Mini Cooper S but to do so right in front of a Top Gear film crew. We were interviewed, appeared on the programme and the rest is history. Well, so Chris thought - this screen grab from the show was modified to show the damaged car and although the image is a little grainy, it had to appear on the site somewhere! Sorry Chris!
