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Classic Ford - Feature: Fiesta XR2
"Vice Squad"
February 2003
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Feature: Fiesta XR2




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.....the finish. In theory you can't break the speed limit, and must arrive at time checks in a certain window of time - too early or too late and you get penalised. That said, go and watch a road rally and you soon realise that speed limit = smeed pimit. This is motorsport - make no mistake. Oh, and all this takes place on the maddest, baddest back roads you could imagine - at 2 am! Well, we did say you had to be slightly tapped.

And this madness is exactly what rally-crazed 23-year-old Owain Morgans has been doing for the last few years. Sick of having his style cramped on the rammed roads and too old for handbraking up the high street. Ford fanatic Owain decided to take the plunge and have a crack at his favourite sport. He's been into his road rallying for five years now, and although his first competition car was a Mkl Golf, we can forgive him that because he said it was too heavy and slow and soon bagged himself a proper rally car - a Mkl Supersport replica.

Owain remembers: "I picked a Mkl Fiesta because they're very easy to work on and get parts for from other Fords. More importantly they aren't Novas, which I hate with a passion! They're nice and small too, which really suits the small lanes used for road rallying around Wales. Being front-wheel-drive, I personally find them a lot easier to drive on road rallies than rear-wheel- drive, where you're constantly correcting your steering mid-bend."

His Supersport replica came with a full set of rally-spec Bilstein suspension and the fabulously fruity 1700cc Kent crossflow - a brilliant, revvy rallying engine. "Turbo'd cars are no good for road rallying, as they're always off-boost when you want it and the oil boils sat waiting at time controls, which isn't too good. The 1700cc crossflow in such a small, light car works very, very well and suits the revvy nature of rallying," Owain explains.

Trouble was, it was rather too good at rallying really, and Owain ended up entering too many events and thrashing the old girl to within an inch of her life - and then some. In the end, Owain's pride and joy couldn't hack his relentless revving and airborne action. She died a rusty shell of a death. Gutted.

But Owain didn't dwell on her transmogrification into iron oxide - after all, that's part and parcel of rallying cheap and cheerful cars. Instead, he got busy looking for a new shell. And he didn't have to look far. He soon found fellow Fiesta fanatic and ex-South West rally champion Sara Church,.....

Captions -

Bottom-Left - Owain's a true Ford fan at heart, but that didn't stop him buying a Mkl Golf as his first rally car. Traitor!
Bottom-Right - "On the loose stuff - rabbit blood, gravel and diesel - she's very tailhappy"