Opinion: Classic regularity rallying descends on the south west

Hero-Era Per Ardua ad Infinitum regularity rally returns to turbulent weather

Always take the hard way.

That’s the rough translation behind the name of Hero-Era’s first regularity rally of the season, the Per Ardua ad Infinitum. And the event more than lived up to it this year, as crews faced ice and snow on the opening day, followed by incessant rain and rivers of mud on the second, over a tricky route covering tests and regularity sections in Somerset and Devon. 

Paul Crosby and navigator Andy Pullan slithered their Porsche 911 to a repeat victory from last year, comfortably beating Paul Bloxidge and Ian Canavan in their Volkswagen Golf GTI by 3min 23sec.

“This was a tough but brilliant event,” said Crosby, a former race engineer who also ran a respected supplier of composite parts to F1 teams. “Many have said it was like LeJog [Land’s End to John O’Groats] and the RAC Rally of the Tests rolled into one, but I think it was more difficult, all condensed into two days.”

The tests were run across a variety of private venues, from farmyards to a karting circuit owned by Nigel Mansell. 

*Motorsport greats: Nigel Mansell*

No racer has captured the British public’s attention quite like Nigel Mansell. During his 16-year F1 career, the moustachioed Brummie was an everyman hero whose fighting spirit in the face of adversity brought new attention to the sport.

Frustrated and ultimately rejected by Lotus, he became a winner at Williams only to agonisingly miss out on the 1986 and 1987 titles. Two years at Ferrari only added to his legend, before he finally took the title he deserved back at Williams in 1992.

But his greatest feat was quitting the team and winning the Indycar Series at his first try.