When two world champions competed together in club motorsport

Newcastle Emlyn, in Wales’ bottom-left corner, is a stunning part of the world – inland from Fishguard, and up the road and across a bit from where Richard Burns and Petter Solberg were each crowned World Rally champion.

Last Saturday night, thoughts of such grandeur were cast from the mind of Solberg’s co-driver Phil Mills and team principal David Richards.

With midnight fast approaching, the pair of them were heads down, plotting as much of the 116-mile route onto Ordnance Survey sheet 145 as possible. As ready as they ever would be, they made for the start. No million-dollar Subaru Impreza WRC this time though – they’d slapped #66 on the doors of somebody’s $3500 Suzuki Swift runaround for the occasion.

How on earth did the man who made motorsport icons, run Formula 1 teams and manage the World Rally Championship through its most successful era find himself in Newcastle Emlyn Livestock market as Saturday knocked firmly on the door of Sunday?

“It was my idea,” Richards told DirtFish. “This is my last year as chairman of Motorsport UK and through the year, I’m participating in every one of the 14 disciplines we manage. Phil and I did a road rally a while ago, but the car we were using broke down on us within the first hour or so.

“We were a bit disappointed by that, then we got chatting the other day and I said: ‘Let’s try and find another one to do.’

“Everyone says the Cilwendeg is one of the most difficult [road rallies] in the world. So, I said: ‘Let’s do that one then, just for the hell of it. It can’t be that difficult, for crying out loud, we’re both World Rally champions…’”

It wouldn’t be too long before those words were being voraciously consumed.

“I’m sure I’d done this event before in the late ’70s sometime but because neither of us had done a road rally for a while, we were in the novice category. Phil borrowed the Suzuki, which had a couple of spotlights on the front. Elfyn [Evans] sent us a bobble hat each for good luck. We put them on and we were ready.

“I have to confess, I’d got down there a bit earlier [on Saturday] and had lunch with a couple of locals. We’d met one guy who gave us the rough lie of the land. He talked about how they try to slow everything down, take you into this farmyard here and then there’s this section which isn’t on the map there. Basically, you had to get into the mind of the clerk of the course to understand a bit more of what was coming.

“Phil and I started plotting the route just before 11 at night, we thought we were doing quite well until somebody pointed out we had 10 minutes before the start and we’d still got a quarter of the route to plot! ‘No problem,’ I told him, ‘we’ll do the rest at a petrol halt or in a slack section…’ But the whole thing was so tight.

“Anyway, we got going. I thought we’re going at a reasonable pace until some youngster in a Citroën C1 came past us and dived off the road and through a hedge on the left. Where did he go? Hats off to the locals, they clearly knew the lanes like the back of their hands, they were so quick with no mistakes.

“It would have been easy to have become overawed by the whole thing, this was a tricky event for novices. We’d made a couple of mistakes by the time we got to petrol – we’d missed a triangular junction which went in and out of a farm; we sailed straight by. And there was a wrong slot as well. We got to petrol and we were three minutes off our maximum lateness.

“Everywhere we went, we would wind the window down [to get the card stamped] and the marshals would all want to have a chat. ‘Hang on a minute, guys… just sign the bloody board – we want to get on!’ And when they do sign, they all seem to have such a long signature!

“Honestly, though, it was so much fun and we were in a car which cost £3000 and you could get in and drive to work on Monday morning.

“Phil and I didn’t have a single crossed word all night. We’re just in awe of how they can do this. Boy, oh boy, it was a challenge and a half. It’s a world of its own. I learned a lot of lessons. I know how I’d do things differently now – there are lots of tricks that you learn and do get back into that mindset, even though it’s been a few years. I said to Phil that I’ve been all over the world for all forms of motorsport events, but here’s a local event and the locals are unbeatable!”

Hitting their maximum lateness, not long after petrol, spelled the end of the adventure for two of Wales’ three World Rally champions.

“We had some fun, we laughed so much,” recounted Richards. “It was hard, it was really hard. And, at five o’clock in the morning, out of time and racing around with the course closing car, I said to Phil: ‘I think we’re done.’

“So, off we went to the rugby club for breakfast.”

Waiting for them back in Newcastle Emlyn was the BBC, keen to report on their efforts.

“I told them,” DR smiled, “I said: ‘Elfyn Evans might have won the World Rally Championship in Sardinia, but if he came here… he wouldn’t be winning the Cilwendeg’. It’s another world, a totally different discipline.”

Back for another go?

“Highly unlikely, not unless Phil lets me drive. He had the easy bit!”