Nigel Barnett & Paul Marshall - 1995 Historic Tour of Cornwall - 2nd overall - Hillman Imp Californian (Stage)
Simoniz Tour of Cornwall Historic Rally 1998 (26 Apr 98) - 2nd in class, 20th overall - comp.no. 220 (35 starters, 3 in B1)
In 1998 the Historic Rally Great Britain ran just in front of the main section of the RAC Rally.
Nigel Barnett had entered his Imp and Dennis Greenslade was navigating. They had had a problem at Silverstone when they lost oil. They made it to Millbrook (stage 5), barely 20 miles into the event, where the engine blew and deposited about 5 litres of oil on 'Makinens' Corner'. The marshals wouldn't let them out while the Historic rally passed, so they had to sit it out. Then they couldn't get out before the main rally arrived. So they sat and watched while Makinen destroyed his car (and championship hopes at that time) on their oil!
The marshals made no attempt to clear the oil nor to warn him.
All of this was reported in the National papers at the time and of course they were featured in the Autosport cartoon. Autosport lay the blame entirely on the Imp. Their journalist with the initials AP in issue January 3 2002: 'the inevitable happened and Barnett's woeful contraption shed it's oil'; 'Barnet's little horror' and the verdict for the Hillman Imp: 'villain. When superannuated snails start influencing world rallies, something has gone wrong'. AP nor his editor have apparently heard of things ever going wrong with modern cars. And they don't appear to think that the circuit management was at fault. Marshalls weren't given time in between rallies for necessary cleaning and that's mismanagement. Nor did the marshalls warn about the oil and that's mismarshalling. Autocom's AP does not have one analytical brain cell hiding in his skull and their editor is not doing his job. Folk like that give sports journalists the bad name they have.
Safety Devices Historic Rally Challenge 24-25th April 1999 - Historic Tour of Cornwall, Nigel Barnett (Bodmin) Dennis Greenslade (Truro), 43 points
Nigel Barnett/Dennis Greenslade won class B1 of the 1999 Vauxhall Astra Historic Stages Rally Stages in their Hillman Imp Californian (Comp.No. 223). They were 9th overall.
Kerridge Historic Rally, June 5 1999 - Nigel Barnett (Bodmin)/Dennis Greenslade (Truro) 58 points
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