Last December Henry Nott was preparing himself for a lean year of rallying. Three months later he’s in a new car, he’s on the entry list for the opening round in Western Australia, and he’s preparing for a full season ahead – so what changed?
“Basically my accountant is furious with me!” Nott explained. “What changed? I had a good, hard think about what I wanted to do and what was going to make me happy and decided that even though I was going to get into a lot of debt I really needed to have one big crack at it this year.”
Nott, like most drivers in all forms of motorsport, has found the sponsorship chase incredibly difficult as companies scale back their marketing budgets. “Basically what you see at every event is me privately funding my rallying,” Henry said.
“But I looked at the type of year we had last year, coming so close to the 4WD title, and thought there was too good an opportunity this year not to have another go.”
Having built a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VI, what Nott describes as “very basic”, and proving his speed and talent in it, the opportunity presented itself for him to purchase a more thoroughly developed Evo IX.
“The car is Matt Selley’s old car, so I know it very well and I know what went into it and what it’s capable of. Before Matt it was Justin Dowel’s and before that it was originally Brett Kipling’s car,” explained Henry.
“I justified buying the car as a purely financial decision, which sounds crazy, but I worked out what it would cost to keep the Evo VI competitive versus what it would cost to buy the Evo IX and it was cheaper to buy the newer car.”
Nott will join the growing stable of cars being run by Race Torque at the Quit Forest Rally, which includes the ‘Maxi’ car of Mark Pedder and the Evo X of Mick Patton, after his regular crew from South Australia all had a prior commitment.
“My usual crew are all going to be at a wedding!” he laughed. “So they miss out, but I’m grateful to the Race Torque team for helping me out, and Mark (Pedder) for pointing me in their direction.”
Apart from stepping into a new car it will also be Nott’s first time competing in WA and he’s mindful of the conditions he’ll face running well up the start order. “We’re fourth car on the road, so I know its going to be extremely slippery,” he said.
“The budget is only affording me one set of new tyres, so between that and not having a swept line I’m going to be sliding everywhere. If that means putting on a good show for the spectators then watch out, we’ll be backwards into every corner!”
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