Russell Brookes

Russell Brookes (born 16 August 1945) was an English rally driver. Only son of a firefighter he made his competitive debut in club events in 1963.

Brookes won the 1977 and 1985 British Rally Championships driving a Ford Escort RS1800 and a Opel Manta 400 respectively. He was also Welsh Rally champion in 1973 and Irish 'Tarmac' Rally Champion in 1989.

Brookes at first drove a number of privately entered cars including a BMC Mini Cooper. Progress was slow until 1973 without the support of family money in a sport which, at that time, did not permit sponsorship of individual cars. He then came to the attention of the Ford Motor Company [Ford] when contesting their Ford Escort Mexico [One Make] championship. In 1976 he was invited to join the Ford 'works' team to drive an Escort RS1800. At that time the British Championship was highly competitive having eclipsed the World Rally Championship for publicity. Brookes found himself in formidable company not least from within the team, Björn Waldegård, Hannu Mikkola and Ari Vatenen [all World Champions] , being his team-mates. He won the Open Championship in 1977 and then stayed with Ford until the end of the 1979 World Rally Championship season.

Two years in the Talbot team followed before he joined Vauxhall/Opel dealer team, first in the Chevette HSR then the mighty Group B Opel Manta 400. The two years with the Opel Manta put Brookes head to head with his team mate Jimmy McRae [father of the late world champion Colin McRae] . The needle match contest was more about the unofficial title of 'Top British Driver' than the championship itself. McRae won in 1984 and Brookes in 1985. The intensity of the contest lives in the memory of enthusiasts to this day. After a year in the uncompetitive Vauxhall Astra and a one off event in a 'works' Lancia Delta Integrale Brookes rejoined Ford in 1988 for an assault on the British Rally Championship, championing first a Sierra Cosworth. Laterly he drove a Ford Sapphire Cosworth 4x4 giving Ford their first international win with the new four wheel drive car. Here he stayed until the end of 1991 when he more or less retired from competitive rallying. To this day though, he still makes sporadic appearances in various cars on historic rallies and at motorsports events.

In 1974 Brookes started one of the longest running sponsorship deals in motorsport when he signed with "Andrews - Heat for Hire" (a portable heating and air conditioning company). Their distinctive yellow colour scheme graced nearly all of his cars through to 1991. During this period the sponsors' turnover grew from £1.5m to over £60m making it a benchmark for other sponsorship deals.

In September 2008, Brookes took part in the "Colin McRae Forest Stages Rally", a round of the Scottish Rally Championship centred in Perth in Scotland. He competed the event in a historic Ford Escort RS1600. He was one of a number of ex-world and British champions to take part in the event in memory of McRae, who died in 2007.

External links

* [http://rallybase.nl/index.php?type=profile&driverid=3118 Rallybase stats page]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygNv6xx7ldQ Russell Brookes interview and mini-documentary at youtube]