Rally Van Staden 2025 Rally Report

It was an eventful day for Scott Barnes and Bill Paynter as they took on the Rally Van Staden in their Peugeot 106 Rallye.

The team were back together after a short summer break for round 4 of the Flanders International Rally Challenge. Baking hot sunshine beamed down onto the shiny and dusty Staden tar, as the team put together a solid set of pacenotes through Saturday’s recce. Bill had previous experience of the event, having finished 10th overall driving his Subaru last year. With two stages the same as last year, knowledge could be shared with Scott to ensure strong pace on a new event to the championship.

Sunday started well, with a clean and fast run through SS1, however, Scott could smell burning and had some smoke in the cockpit during the 12km test. On the road section, Scott investigated further and identified the cause, an issue with the alternator that was seemingly shorting out. Fortunately the issue was identified before a major incident, and Scott removed the auxiliary belt to avoid a fire from the failing alternator. This meant that the Peugeot 106 now had no alternator charging the battery, but also, no power steering, which was also disconnected to save power.

Scott wrestled the 106 Rallye through the next two stages, understandably losing some time applying caution, but staying in the rally. After this initial workout, it was back to service where the team jumped on changing the fried alternator. Unfortunately, the alternator location, squeezed between a piping hot exhaust manifold and close to the chassis leg, made it very awkward for the team to change in service. The guys did a great job to get it done, but a 1 minute penalty was picked up for being late out of service. Because of the lack of time, the car was also sent back out without power steering.

So Scott continued with “arm day” as the 106 headed out for stage 4. As the team arrived at the start, they were held on the start line, due to an accident on the stage. The stage was then cancelled, so the BP Rally pairing then led the field through an alternate route to stage 5. Another clean, but challenging run, as Scott fought the heavy steering. After the stage, Scott and Bill were able to fix the power steering issue on the road section, meaning that they were now at full health, and ready to start the fight back.

With a morning full of drama, including the penalty, the team found themselves down in 39th place. From the start of stage 6, full attack mode was engaged. A very strong run through, that was until around 1km before the end of the stage. At the end of a long straight, the Peugeot singing in 6th gear, a bump kicked the rear of the 106 out of line. The right side of the car left the road at over 100mph. Somehow, Scott managed to keep the car going straight, scrubbing off speed as he gathered the 106 just in time. A heart stopping moment, especially after Bill’s recent high speed accident on the Ypres Rally.

A quick reset in service, and the team continued to ramp up the pace. Banging in some excellent times as they climbed their way up the leaderboard.

This peaked with a fantastic 10th fastest time on Stage 11, beating multiple R5/Rally 2 cars in the process.

At the end of the day, Scott and Bill managed to fight their way back to a solid 17th overall finish, even after all of the issues picking up 2nd in Class 3F and 2nd in the FIRC championship 2WD standings, behind Tim Freeman in his Millington powered Mk2 Escort.

A drama filled day that started rough, but just got better and better. A massive thanks has to go to the amazing service team for getting the little Peugeot to the end of the event.

Scott’s next event is the classic Tour Of Flanders, where he will be hoping he can carry his Staden pace into the event.