CRX89B 2012 RMCH Video Pt 4 - Classification Leg Cont'd

Alastair Vines' mini CRX89B - Austin Mini Cooper S 1964 on the Rallye Monte Carlo Historique.

Alastair Vines and Peter Moss with the help of their service team of Nigel Chetwynd and Simon Wheatcroft tackle the 2012 Rallye Monte Carlo Historique. They are competing as part of a five car team of British Minis - Equipe Mini. They have sponsorship from Mini Spares Ltd (www.minispares.com), and have the support of Roelands Race and Rally (Mini Prep) (roelandsracerally.com), Auto-BMC (www.auto-bmc.com)  in France, and Southam Mini and Metro Centre (+44 1926 815681)

In Part 4 we continue to enjoy the brilliant sunshine and fairy tale landscape created by the fresh covering of thick snow. We descend from the end ZR2 on a very snowy road pursuing a fellow competitor into Castellane, then have a blast up the Route Napoleon with an unseen new Mini Countryman 4wd, before tackling the fearsome Col d'Espreaux with its deep ditches on one side and unprotected flanks to the long drop on the other.

We end the day in Valence in 76th position overall to overnight before the commencement of the two day Common Leg the next morning.

In ZR2, Le Mas -  Les quatre Chemins (seen in Part 3), we finish 77th having gone well over the first part of the stage, but lost quite a bit toward the end (off camera), 50 seconds down at the last timing point.

In ZR3, Sigoyer - Col d'Espreaux, the subject of this video, we faired a little better coming out 75th over the stage. We are in good company, with Sala in a Porsche who would lead the rally for most of the event going over in 50th place, and Brianti in a Mini Cooper S who would retire later from 10th place overall, in 83rd position on this test. Our overall position rises to 49th.

For ZR4, Chichilianne - Les Nonnieres (not filmed), another very snowy stage taken as it was getting dark, we did better coming out in a creditable 40th place, and improve our overall position to 34th.

In ZR5, over the challenging Col de l'Echarasson (not filmed), in deep snow and thick fog we hit our first big set back. Many fortunes were thrown into oblivion here, and a Lancia driver was trying to recover his.  We arrived to find a big tow truck blocking the competitive stage in the process of deploying a crane arm and cable over the side of the mountain to recover a Lancia that had gone over the edge. We lost several minutes waiting for the road to clear, which we could never hope to catch back. 148th out of here, and crash back down to 76th overall - thats rallying! END.