Robin takes on Hellas Rally

Robin Powel, Molson Managing Director, recently took the Molson name to the Hellas Rally 2017. A highly respected international off road motorcycle, quad and buggy rally-raid held in Greece over a grueling 7 days. This year’s event saw an international field of 220 competitors from as far afield as Canada, Spain and numerous places in between.

Riders competed over 1,450 kilometers of timed stages in the mountains of Central Greece. The terrain covered the diversity of the region, covering coastal roads, alpine forests and snow covered mountains up to 2,000m in altitude with everything from heat, dust, rain, mist, hail and sunshine. The rally was a navigation rally with a road book (similar to pace notes) covering timed special stages and liaisons to and from the stages from the static bivouac in Nafpaktos.

Robins’ team comprised of Clive Town, Harry Michael, Chris Barwick, Graham Knight, Matt Smith, Paul Robson and Derek Wylie. All of Robins’ teammates were on hand to help him through his first rally and give him help in servicing the bike, organising his time and preparing his road book in what were long days on the bike, at the bivouac and included a number of 5am alarm clocks.

Robin was ultimately looking to finish this event hopes that his experience and fitness would allow him to climb the classification in the second half of the week as other riders suffered from fatigue and that’s exactly how things went. Lying in 42nd overall on day 1, Robin ran 38th after the longest day, which included a total of 360 kilometres (London to Preston) of which 296 of them (Oxford to Preston) were timed special stages. After a total of 1,610 kilometres and 1,450 kilometres of specials stages, all off road, Robin eventually finished a creditable 58th overall  and  28th in the 350 to 450cc class of the Hellas rally hurt significantly by 47 minutes of speed penalties in the last section. With out which 42nd overall would have been possible. Being the last day of the rally there seemed little point in challenging the spurious speeding penalty.

Robin hopes to continue his rally-raid efforts in 2017 by training in enduros both in the UK and abroad and by entering more international rallies in Europe and ultimately Africa in the 2017 and 2018 season carrying the Molson name on his bike and kit.