We knew that we had a great chance of winning the class, but our lead was slender, and it would not take much for it to slip away. We also knew from last year that we do well where the driving is challenging. We planned to go hard, pick up a few more places, establish ourselves in the top 50, close the gap on Repoux and be ready to overtake him should he falter. We also learned from our service crew that the leading Mini Raimondo had visited them with a head gasket problem. He might not make it through the night.
The Turini was challenging, icy and huge fun. We overtook a few cars here. We did well on the following ZR13, catching more time up on Repoux the 2nd Mini, and the DKW which we had to stay ahead of in our class.
The final stage ZR14 was incredibly challenging- an impossible time schedule, very tight, very twisty, a great opportunity to catch a lot of leading folks up. The first road section went well, but then they took us down a rutted horrible track, deep snow, with livestock wandering about. Great queues of rally cars developed with no hope of passing. Folks got stuck, positions were lost, tempers became frayed. We lost 10 positions in this section having become embroiled into a slow moving procession of a dozen or so cars. Not a great ending to one of the most challenging of Monte Carlo rallies.
We returned to the harbour, our final control for a well earned beer. The car was a little bruised after having nurfed a snow bank which hid an Armco barrier as we fought our way passed an extremely well driven Porsche 356.
Here the team tired but happy after completing a successful rally Monte Carlo Historique. The car shows its bruises, but not as badly as some. Finally driver Al Vines and co- pilot Peter Moss with well deserved silver ware for their class win in the 1962 - 1965 class for up to 1300cc vehicles. END.
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