The Scottish Rally Championship 1980 – 1989 by John Fife.
Ex ‘Motoring News / Motorsport News’ contributor for 50 years (1972-2022) John Fife has written the first of six planned books documenting the history of the national Scottish Rally Championship. What started as a single volume history during lockdown quickly evolved into a series of six books – one for each decade since 1960.
As John explained: “I simply couldn’t fit everything into one book, so it had to be six, and even now I’m still having to leave out information and stories. Who knows, there may yet be a seventh book containing all the scandalous bits left out! By that time I’ll be past caring getting sued anyway!!”
The first book covers the decade 1980-1989 simply because John has kept complete records since then with work already having started on the next book, covering the 1990-1999 period.
Sadly no one person, club or championship has kept complete records since the sport of stage rallying began in 1961 hence John’s current search for sets of rally results from the 1960s and 1970s. So if anyone has a pile of old rallying paperwork in the loft that are not completely mouse eaten, John may well be interested.
The first A4 format hardbacked book is now on sale with 216 pages and over 350 photographs at £35 or £40 incl P&P.
Click on the image below to order your copy.
The book wasn’t designed to be read from cover to cover, although some ardent fans may do that, but rather something to be dipped into as and when the need for a trip down memory lane arose. On the other hand some readers may turn only to the reports of those events in which they participated.
Of course there are now various internet sources which store rally results from the past, but that’s a bit like reading the last page of a thriller to see ‘who dunnit’ and missing out on the story of how the heroes and heroines got there. One other important aspect, the results as recorded in this book are accurate, unlike some website information – because the author was there, in person!