Life outside of Elite Labels and inside a rally car
16 September 2021
At Elite labels, our incredible team plays as hard as they work. We love encouraging our team members to thrive outside of the workplace because happy teams are made up of happy people! Our Operations Director, Simon Double, has been involved in the world of motorsport and rallying for over 45 years.
A Rally is a form of motorsport that takes place on public or private roads with modified production or specially built road-legal cars. Late British legends Colin McRae and Richard Burns became stars in the World Rally Championship but that’s only the tip of an iceberg. In the UK alone rallying is enjoyed by thousands of competitors across dozens of championships and events.
Special Stage rallying is probably the best known branch of the discipline, but navigational events on the public highway known as Road Rallies have a long and successful history and are easily accessible to anyone with a road car and driving licence.
We got to chatting with Simon about events he has been involved with recently and some of his incredible achievements over the years.
Simon has focused on co-driving for teams in UK national championships as well as international events like the Network Q UK event and rally of Barbados. Working with international powerhouses such as Peugeot motorsport teams, he worked as team manager for Jason Sharp and celebrated great successes during this period. His interest in the world of rallying runs in the family too, with his daughter Jessica getting involved working as Simons’s co-driver through some of the most testing UK forest events.
Speaking on some of his recent events he told us, “Our first trip this year was to Lockerbie Scotland for the 75th Scottish rally by far the most challenging event in the calendar due to its long stages of 12 -14 miles and the sometimes rough forest roads the event took place on Saturday 24th July and attracted some 140 entries.
We started out well but on stage 3 went off damaging a track control arm but we managed to get back to service in one piece and change the affected part with no further incidents we finished 1st in class, 1st Rally First BTRDA car and 80th overall which in a near standard car is not bad at all”
The BTRDA Rally Series is a rally series in Great Britain. The BTRDA was formed in 1938 by a group of disgruntled participants in the London-Gloucester reliability trials. The event had been promoted as suitable for amateurs with ordinary road cars, but proved so difficult that only two cars completed.
In recent news, Simon competed in the Woodpecker Rally in Wales on the 4thSeptember and came 2nd in class. An incredible achievement indeed! We’re now looking forward to another great result in the Trackrod Rally Yorkshire which Simon won some years ago as a co- driver.
Elite Labels has sponsored Simon and are extremely proud of his achievements – we eagerly anticipate what else the world of Motorsports has in store for him.