Life in the fast Lane

TOOTHY grin . . . Saddleworth dentist Andrew Lane with his gold medal

Dentist goes through pain barrier to complete epic rally

SADDLEWORTH dentist Andrew Lane is all smiles after coming out on top in an epic rally.

He scooped one of only two gold medals handed out in LeJog — or the the Land’s End to John o’Groats Reliability Trial — dubbed Europe’s most challenging classic car rally.

Andrew also came away with four other accolades in what was only his second attempt.

The 55-year-old tackled the three-day Historic Endurance Rallying Organisation (HERO) event in his 1966 Mercedes Benz 300 SE with navigator Iain Tullie, from Cockermouth, test co-ordinator for M-Sport, who run the Ford World Rally Team. The pair survived on as little as four hours’ sleep a night as they went hell for leather on a series of winding roads such as the Devil’s Staircase in Wales and a catalogue of infamous hairpins near Loch Ness in Scotland.

The duo battled torrential rain, icy conditions and extreme tiredness to complete regularity sections, where cars have to reach control points on defined routes within seconds of a set time.

Andrew said: “The scariest test awaited us at Bury Ford where we had 30 seconds to cross the deep ford, stop astride a line, stop the engine, re-start it and drive forward to the final stop.”

Andrew first entered LeJog in 2003 with son-in-law Adrian Bennett, with whom he has the Apollonia House practice in Grasscroft.

They did not do well in an ill-prepared TR4, as Andrew explained.

“We knew nothing about the sport, it was a bit of a dark art,” he said.

“We hadn’t a clue what we were letting ourselves in for, but I got the bug from there and I have just carried on doing it.”

Andrew, who is married with four daughters, decided in October to have another crack at it.

Within a week, he had found the Mercedes on eBay and it was serviced and prepared with only 24 hours to spare.

As well as a gold medal, Andrew and Iain also won their class, the Mercedes marque team prize, the Clockwatchers’ Cup for keeping to time and were named the Best UK crew.

The final leg of of the journey was a bumper 26-hour stretch.

Andrew added: “You do get a two-hour rest every so often, it’s within the rules, but normally it’s just to fix the car and get a meal.

“It is a real challenge to keep going, stay awake and concentrate. But the feeling you get at the end when you have achieved it is well worth it.

“The best part was coming through Wales in the middle of the night, pouring with rain, with very challenging road conditions and trying to keep to time.

“You have just got to push on but keep safe.”