Guide to Committee Members

The Competition Secretary - Colin Early

Q: How many years have you been on the committee, and what was your first post?
A: I joined the committee as Competition Secretary and this will be my fourth year.

Q: What does it involve?
A: There are three major responsibilities. I am the focal point for receiving regulations for other events which I distribute on club night. These come in at varying rates - the peak season for road rallies is the winter, whereas stage events come in throughout the year. Often I get regulations only because I have registered for championships myself - it depends on how organised the different associations are.
I represent Southern at Association meetings which can be as far afield as the West Country, Norfolk and into the wilds of Wales. At these I give the club view in discussions and see what direction people generally are heading in. I am also personally on the sub-committee for rallies so I take a greater part in these discussions.
My third and possibly most enjoyable duty is talking to new club members about what they want to do, and encouraging them into the correct direction in motorsport. As an example of this, I talked to Jason and Robert (see last month's magazine) when they came along to club night having bought their Lada. They didn't know how to go about doing an event and generally turning their ideas into action. So after giving bits of advice they have done the Sussex Challenge this year and have enjoyed themselves tremendously - and have become great crowd pleasers.

Q: What is your history in motorsport, and how did you start?
A: I started in 1979 when I shared a house with a chap who did Motoring News road rallies. I started by marshalling on a road rally, did an autotest and then the occasional road rally in a rusty Starsky & Hutch-painted Avenger. We entered 5 events and only finished one! On the first event we came to grief on the first corner when we went straight on into the Armco and just got out as the next car went in. We got a mention in Motoring News as six crews did the same thing.
In 1992-3 I started seriously in road rallies and came first Novice on one. Then I bought the Nova GTE for stage events and carried on to my first full season with Colin Hutchings as my navigator in 1994.

Q: What was your worst moment on an event?
A: Without doubt it was at Longcross on my first time out on slicks. The first stage was ok, and then the second stage I picked up 16 seconds. By stage 3 I was catching cars and found I could take one of the chicanes flat in 3rd. I opened up a bit more the following time - and the car went into a tankslapper. I struggled down the stage to contain it as the back end went from side to side and finally I gave up fighting it and let go of the wheel. I waited, caught it and just as Colin said "Well done, you've got it" we went straight off into the bushes and collected a tree slap in the middle of the bonnet.

Q: And your most enjoyable?
A: This was definitely in March last year at Elvington. I was lying 31st at the start of two stages run together, fifth in class which was about where I'd expected to be. As I went to join the queue it started to rain, so I nipped back and changed my slicks for a set of road tyres, brand new Goodyear NCTs. By the time I came to start the stage it was really hammering down with rain. Colin said it would be alright - and by the first corner I knew he was right! I set the second fastest time overall on the stage and moved straight up to 15th overall. The next stage I moved up to 12th and by the end I had a top 10 finish and second in class.

Q: What is your current car?
A: It was the Nova but I've got a project underway which you will see in a "My Car" article later in the year.