He drives a Citroën hatchback and describes himself as a “safe and steady” motorist. On first impressions, then, you wouldn’t take Hubert Scott for a budding rally driver.
But try telling that to the airborne co-driver alongside Scott as he negotiated a hump-back bridge at more than 60mph during last weekend’s Rally of the Midlands. Such speed would be expected of a more seasoned rally driver, but not of a man who had never in his life driven a rally car in anger.
Scott got the chance to race in the event after winning a Sunday Times rally competition last February. From hundreds of entrants, 18 aspiring drivers were picked and sent to the Silverstone Rally School for a day’s assessment of driving skills, fitness, memory and co-ordination. Scott was judged the most promising and selected to compete for real.
Despite being thrown in at the deep end, he acquitted himself well, coming third out of eight in his class, and finishing a respectable 44th out of a total field of 90. And he managed to land safely after the jump over the hump-back bridge.
“That was my biggest moment — it wasn’t fear but exhilaration, a mid-air adrenaline rush,” says the 26-year-old, who works as an aerospace engineer. “When we came over (the bridge), it was in a very shady area under trees, and blinding camera flashes were going off everywhere. It was something else.”
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Scott dreamt of racing rally cars when he first started driving tractors as an eight-year-old at his family’s farm in Co Down.
“I was interested in rallying from an early age, as there’s a big rally heritage in Northern Ireland,” he says, but it wasn’t until the Sunday Times competition that he had the chance to compete in a real rally.
After impressing the judges at the selection day, Scott, from Ashby Parva, Leicestershire, had to pass further exams to obtain his British Association of Rally Schools’ competition licence. His reward was a place driving a professionally prepared MG ZR 1400 in the Rally of the Midlands. The two-day event saw him against more experienced drivers in 18 road-based stages around the towns of Hinckley and Nuneaton.
“Some of the stages were through the grounds of stately homes,” he said. “I really enjoyed those because it was similar to the roads at home on which I had learnt to drive — tight with lots of hedges and fences to obscure vision.
“I was flying along at 90mph on a very long blind corner. On the road you can’t do that because you have no idea what might be coming the other way. It was fantastic being able to do it, just knowing the road was clear and all mine.”
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Scott finished with the car intact apart from a couple of burst tyres and a few bent panels.
“Safe and steady” he may be, but Scott has now been bitten hard by the rallying bug, and says his first rally will not be his last; he’s looking for sponsorship so he can compete again.