Tibor Érdi Jr has made FIA European Historic Rally Championship history by cinching the first overall EHRC title to be awarded*.
With István Kérek co-driving his Ford Sierra Cosworth 4x4, Érdi Jr finished second on the Historic Acropolis Rally to secure the points needed to move ahead of erstwhile leader “Zippo”, who was a non-starter in Greece due to injury.
Érdi Jr also secured the Category 4 title with Ernie Graham finishing runner-up in the overall and Category 4 standings at the wheel of the Flexifly Rally Team Ford Escort RS he shares with his co-driving daughter Anna.
While Érdi Jr and Kérek celebrated FIA EHRC title glory, Richard Jordan and co-driver Sam Collis (lead image) claimed a debut Historic Acropolis Rally victory in a Category 3 Ford Escort RS2000 as Érdi Jr and Graham completed the overall FIA EHRC event podium in second and third respectively.
“Life is perfect,” said Hungarian Érdi Jr at the finish on Itea’s main seafront this evening. “Okay we finish second on the rally but the championship we win. Thanks to the team, they worked very hard all year, thanks to my family and to everyone who did their best. We were up and down all year. The first race for me, Vltava, we were out, Finland out, it was always up and down but we are very happy.”
Having started leg two trailing Érdi Jr by 14.9s, Jordan moved level on time with his rival when he outpaced him through Sunday’s opening test, the repeat of Saturday’s Karoutes night stage.
Érdi Jr hit back with the fastest time of all through SS8, the 15.27 kilometres of Parnassos, to open up a 4.8s lead over Jordan, only for the British driver to set the pace on the 12.22-kilometre ninth stage, Prossilio, to cut Érdi Jr’s advantage to 0.2s with two stages remaining.
After spending the rally with his focus on championship points rather than the outright win, an approach he described as “safely push”, there was drama for Érdi Jr when his car suffered a broken front-left driveshaft on the rerun of Parnassos, which Jordan completed with an outright lead of 32.5s over Érdi Jr.
Jordan was once again the FIA EHRC driver to beat on the second pass of Prossilio to secure the rally win by 1m02.0s as Érdi Jr claimed the overall and Category 4 FIA EHRC titles.
“We just had a clean run to be honest,” said Jordan. “The first stage in the loop is so hard to judge if you’re going fast or not because there’s no grip, you were really overdriving. Then the last stage having the lead and trying to look after that when it’s so rough was horrible, that was a long 12 kilometres. We’ve never competed aboard before, never made our own pacenotes, we just came for the experience so it was phenomenal really.”
For Graham (above), taking runner-up in the FIA EHRC standings was a case of mission accomplished.
“We could have only won the championship if Tibor had a problem, he ran good and fair play to him because he was a lot quicker, we were never going to beat him in a straight fight, but I’m delighted we were able to finish runner-up,” said Graham. “And another podium on the Acropolis Rally is no mean feat.”
James Potter followed Graham home in the second Flexifly Rally Team entry after overcoming a minor clutch issue on his Acropolis debut, which he made using Graham’s pacenotes and read by Graham’s wife Karen.
Alexandros Christodoulou rounded out the FIA EHRC top five in his Lancia 037 followed by Christophe Jacob and FIA EHRC Front Wheel Drive Trophy winner Piotr Gadomski .
Jacob had completed Saturday’s final stage in third place among the FIA EHRC contenders but dropped out of contention following delays replacing a broken rear axle at the end-of-day service halt in Itea. The Belgian, who was delayed by a slow puncture on SS10, had nevertheless done enough to take runner-up in the Category 3 standings behind champion “Zippo” by starting the event.
With his wife Renate co-driving, Siegfried Mayr was pegged back by two punctures on the final day but still reached the finish in his Volvo 244.
After restarting on leg two following his exit on Saturday’s first stage with a broken driveshaft, Maciej Lubiak was unable to go the distance for the second day running due to a bottom arm and driveshaft failing on his otherwise immaculate Porsche.
