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| The driver | The Co-driver | The current car | The Team | Photos |  |
 ABOUT
THE DRIVER
Married, 32 year old Heysham based Air Conditioning Company director Ian Sibbert, has been involved in motorsport for thirteen years, since he joined Kirkby Lonsdale Motor Club in Cumbria, in 1989. In the years that followed, he gained experience and skill, driving his own self prepared Ford Escort RS2000, achieving success and class wins in local rallies, culminating in 1994 when he won the Victor Ludorum Trophy in Morecambe Car Club’s Stage Rally Championship. The RS 2000 was sold (and as a tribute to Ian's car building skill, is still going strong in the BTRDA Championship), and was replaced in 1996 with a Ford RS Cosworth Sapphire 4x4 built by Ian to FIA Group 'A' (modified) specification. 
The 1996 BTRDA Championship - sixth place Cosworth Sapphire This was the car that, with generous sponsorship from Oliver Wilson-Barnes and Dave Wearmouth, then joint Managing Directors of DYNATEK Data Storage, took Ian and the team to sixth position overall at the team's first attempt, in the fiercely competitive 1996 British Trials & Rally Drivers Association (BTRDA) National Series. As a reward for their achievement in the championship, and the excellent publicity generated on events for DYNATEK's customers, many of who attended rallies during the season, the team were entered by DYNATEK on that year's Network Q RAC Rally.
That even was notorious for the heavy snow and the incident with the tree stump in Chatsworth Park which wrecked the cars of top competitors Gwyndaf Evans and Robbie Head. Ian and his then Co-driver Steve Rigby survived all that however, and delighted the sponsors and their guests at the spectator stage of Clumber Park in Nottingham, only to be forced out later that same day with a broken clutch. Ian enjoys the full support of his wife Julie who is the team’s logistics manager, and his dedicated service crew who have been the backbone to his rallying successes to-date. 33 Year old Chris Thomas works for Crane Hire specialists A. Jardine & Sons Ltd, and has been a rally co-driver for 11 years. When the offer of Co-driving for Ian came along he found it hard to resist. He adapted to the role very well and an empathy soon developed with Ian. As Chris said at the time, “I’ve always wanted to do a national championship in a fully competitive car and doing it with Ian, a driver for whom I have the utmost respect, is an added bonus”.
The car is built to 'Group A' Specification within the FIA regulations and was personally prepared by the driver Ian Sibbert and his crew. The team was at it's largest during the attempt on the 1996 BTRDA Championship when it regularly fielded 10 people and three or four vehicles, in addition to the rally car. Add to that the sponsors and their guests, and the team sometimes had 30 people in hot persuit. The logistics for this kind of deployment are formidable, with hotels, catering, travel and incidentals, but they were capably handled by the team's Logistics Manager Julie Sibbert. The team competed in all but one event in the championship that year, and later the Network Q rally, and it was all handled without a hickup by Julie.
Key members of the current team include
 
"Leapy" Lee Milne, gearbox maestro and "Uncle Al" Hughes all round useful chap 
RESULTS The team snached a rain-soaked victory in the Mather Signs- Bay Stages Rally in March 2000. It was new team member Chris Thomas's first outright win in ten years of co-driving and he was suitably overcome at the prizegiving, thanking Ian and the team for realising his long held ambition. The Guardian sport commented "The event was won by the Escort Cosworth 4x4 of Ian Sibbert and Chris Thomas, who seemed capable of setting a string of amazing times over terrain that arguably suited a power-boat better than a rally car"
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Content and Photographs © Phil Worthington 1996
ABOUT THE 
