RAC Rally Action!

About Tony Gardiner

Tony Gardiner is a highly experienced professional illustrator who has maintained a lifelong interest in motorsport including club events rallies sprints and hillclimbs as a spectator official and competitor._x000B_ Tony first became interested in motorsport in 1957 when the Ecurie Ecosse team of D Type Jaguars won at Le Mans. Other forms of motorsport including rallies like the Monte Carlo and Liége-Rome-Liége with competitors driving over Europe_x0019_s mountain roads and snow-covered goat tracks at high speed captured Tonys imagination. He quickly became aware of Britain _x0019_s own RAC International Rally which covered some two thousand miles of British roads each November. As _x0018_The RAC _x0019_ became more and more competitive with new forest stages his interest grew. In 1964 he was a spectator at the RAC Rallys start at the Chelsea Barracks in London and decided there and then that next year he would follow the Rally round its entire route. This started some 14 further such ventures covering thousands of miles in a Mini Cooper Vauxhall Magnum and a Leyland 1800. Tony even persuaded the Press Office of the Royal Automobile Club to issue him with passes and rally plates which helped him immensely getting in and out of stages quickly. The result of Tony _x0019_s passion for the RAC Rally is that he amassed between 1964-1983 over a thousand photographs in black and white and colour plus a large collection of RAC Rally memorabilia much of which is reproduced in this book. Tony is based in Worthing West Sussex and has published several other books with Veloce including How to Draw & Paint Cars Motor Racing at Goodwood in the Sixties and The Brighton National Speed Trials.