by Geoff Mayes


Stephen Petch Jr experienced one of the biggest crashes of his career on an incident packed Rally Isle of Man, round three of the 2006 Tesco 99 Octane MSA British Rally Championship recently.

After debuting his SG Petch Motorsport run Mitsubishi Evo IX on the island earlier in the year Petch Jr was confident of a good run on the Rally Isle of Man, an event notorious for its changeable weather conditions and tricky roads. With the high speeds frequently reached on these treacherous roads this event is not for the faint hearted and the young County Durham driver was confident that the event would suit his driving style.

The rally got off to a bad start when Petch Jr slowed to ensure that Roman Kresta, who had crashed out early in the very first stage, was alright. With the anti lag on his Mitsubishi inadvertently turned off he struggled through most of the stage before realising his error. The resulting slow stage time dropped him down the order.

Stage 2, run over slightly faster and more flowing roads saw Petch Jr and co-driver Michael Wilkinson up the pace considerably, but then, as the pair neared the finish they were slowed as young Stuart Jones had crashed out heavily and his car was partially blocking the stage. Petch Jr, presuming the stage had been stopped, halted at the accident to ensure that the crew were both ok before slowly continuing to the finish. Despite the majority of the crews receiving nominal times the SG Petch Scalextric Mitsubishi driver was awarded his actual time, costing him even more time!

The final three stages of day one went without incident and despite struggling in the dusk on the final stage, where running with lights seemed to make no difference, Petch Jr still set some fairly quick times but was not happy to be lying just inside the top thirty.

"We lost a lot of time on the first two stages when we slowed down at two very big crashes. Now we have no option but to push fairly hard tomorrow and try and make up a bit of time," he noted.

With the weather changing constantly on Friday morning tyre choice was a real gamble and Petch Jr was one of many to struggle through the opening stage on the wrong tyres. Despite this he was confident that his tyre choice would work for the rest of the morning loop and headed into stage 7 still remarkably optimistic.

However half was through stage 7, Kella 1, it all went horribly wrong for the young man though. As the pair approached a fast sequence of bends they hit a patch of wet tarmac which speared the Mitsubishi off the road and up a bank. This was not too bad except the bank - and the car, ended in a wall! Going from 90mph to 0 in half a second did the car no good and the team were out of the event immediately. Despite being fairly shook up both Petch Jr and Wilkinson were uninjured but their rally, and quite possibly their championship aspirations, were over.

"I am absolutely gutted! This was the biggest crash of my career and the car is pretty messed up! Both Michael and I are pretty sore now but full credit to all the safety devices built into the car," he noted. "I don't think we'll have her ready in time for the Ulster so now I need to sit down with the team and decide what to do. Either way we'll definitely be back for the Rally of Yorkshire seeing as how that's my home event."

The SG Petch Motorsport Team now face a challenge as Petch Jr is due to contest the Park Systems Rally in early September, as well as the Ulster Rally shortly afterwards.