For Keaton Williams, the last four years have been about total domination of the ARA National Championship. Four titles, 21 rally wins.
Earlier this month, Friday 13th was different. You had to go back to 2021 for the last time the Englishman didn’t wake up in Missouri and celebrate more success with Brandon Semenuk a day later.
Williams remains a co-driver: his Rally North Wales entry, co-driving Tom Cave’s Ford Escort RS1800 this weekend, is a demonstration that he would find it very hard to put the pacenote book down. But this year’s about adding another string to the bow and Rally in the 100 Acre Wood was his first outing as team manager at Standard Motorsports.
“It’s definitely a shift in mindset,” he told DirtFish. “When I woke up on the first morning of the recce, my first thought was: ‘Right, get the pacenote book, let’s go.’
“Oh… It’s a strange feeling to be here after four years co-driving. It’s a different environment and obviously a very different job.”
Williams is working in a new role with Standard Motorsports this year
Looking to acclimatise himself to Ryan Booth’s impressive South Carolina team, Williams was out with the team for a fortnight ahead of the event. That helped with preparations for running DirtFish Women in Motorsport Driver Aoife Raftery in a Ford Fiesta Rally3 and Tom Williams in a Škoda Fabia RS Rally2.
“I wanted to get into the team to understand the people, the different personalities – it was a chance to get ahead of the game,” explained Williams.
“Aoife and Tom both had a really good pre-event test and, to be honest, everything was pretty dialled from the very beginning. It was really interesting to see everything from the other side – to see how the engineers worked with the drivers and how the engineers then worked with the technicians.
“Getting into the event, I think everybody was really pleased to see the pace and the competition at the front. There were four or five cars really fighting it out, which is something America hasn’t seen for a few years. And both of our Standard cars were right up there.
Keaton spent two weeks at the team prior to the event to get himself acclimatized
“Both Tom and Aoife worked very, very well with the team. Tom made great use of his engineer to understand the car and how to get the best out of the set-up and the same for Aoife. The way her pace was building and building through the event, I honestly felt if we’d had another loop, another four or five stages, she’d have been knocking on the door of the podium – that was really encouraging in such a tight field.”
Did he miss the competition?
“Yeah,” Williams smiled. “It was different not getting into the car in service and heading out to the stages, but the buzz in the team was definitely there. We’re fortunate to have RallySafe in ARA, so we can really watch the results and stay in touch with the event. While the cars are in the stages, you’re very focused on that aspect of competition. Outside of that, there was definitely some new stuff, with things like making sure the tires were in the right place, where’s the fuel coming from – there was so much more to think about.
“I was thinking quite a lot about the step I made and it really reminded me of the first time I did an international event; it just feels like there’s a lot more going on and you’ve got to have your head in a few different games. I really enjoyed that.
“It was a bit frustrating when the cars left service and you have that brief lull. I walked a few laps of the service park – I’m not very good at sitting still!
“Moving forwards, I’ve already identified a few areas where we can work before the next event in Olympus – just the 6,000-mile round trip for the team… American geography always brings a different perspective!
“There are some things in the cockpit of the car, the layout of stuff in the back, just a few ideas I’ve got. Ryan’s aim is to have Standard Motorsports be the best customer team in America. I’ve worked with a good few top-level teams in Europe and I’d say he’s well on the way to achieving that.”
One of those ‘top-level teams’ is Toyota Gazoo Racing. As a former co-driver to recent Safari Rally winner Takamoto Katsuta, Williams understands the demands the sport makes at the elite level.
“It was the same with Subaru here in America,” he said, “the planning, the debrief process, the communication – all of that is so important. The communication is something I’ve been really big on, creating WhatsApp groups to make sure engineers and crews are talking and having those lines of communication open all the time.”
Standard is aiming to become the go-to customer team in America
Bringing both cars home in the top six was a near-perfect start for Williams’ team management career.
“It was a really good start,” he said. “Missouri and 100 Acre is a great event. Like everywhere in ARA and rallies around the world, a rally is so dependent on its volunteer force and its organization. I was wearing a different hat on this event and being able to see the invaluable job they do was fantastic.
“Yes, it was a shame we didn’t get the win, Tom’s puncture was unfortunate, but both drivers and co-drivers did a fantastic job and it was great to work with Ryan [Booth] and people like Josie [Rimmer, DirtFish Women in Motorsport co-ordinator and Raftery’s manager]. I’ve worked in teams like Subaru and Toyota at a high level and that’s what we’re striving for with Standard.
“Watching the cars come in to the finish and seeing the crews get out of the car and feel that adrenalin dump was strange. For me, that’s one of the big things about competing: getting to the finish and knowing you’ve done a good job in a really high-speed, high-intensity environment. But the big win was seeing the whole team come together and work so, so well as one unit. Being part of that was mega. Looking forward to the next one now.”
