In a League of his own

MAYDAY, Mayday, Mayday!” It was not something Ronnie Dale had expected to hear in the middle of Wales during the press launch of the new Evoque back in the summer of 2011, but that was what came crackling over the support crew radio frequency. Ronnie recognised the voice of Nick Dimbleby, the official photographer at the event, and within minutes Ronnie and his team were on the scene. “I’ve never experienced anything quite like it,” Ronnie recalls. “A brand new Evoque with two terrified journalists inside was teetering over the edge of the track, just like the coach in the final scene of The Italian Job. How on earth the driver managed to do it I will never know! Nick had witnessed the whole thing and was able to raise the alarm immediately. It’s probably the only time in his life he’s ever had to say ‘Mayday’!

“The first rule in such a situation is to secure the vehicle so that it cannot fall any further, and we did that with multiple strops using vehicles as anchors. And then we had to pull it back onto the track, which took three winch-equipped Land Rovers. The Evoque was largely undamaged, although the journalists very obviously needed a change of trousers!” I casually ask Ronnie who the journalists were but, ever the professional, he won’t be drawn. At least not on the record!

Ronnie Dale has, quite literally, spent a lifetime with Land Rover, starting at the age of eight when he drove a Series I on the family farm at North Berwick. Fast forward fourteen years to 1976, and Ronnie got married, acquired his own farm and bought a Series III. “It was an important year for me,” he says, “but little did I know how tough farming would become over the next few years.

“For three years I was a very enthusiastic rally driver, driving a MkI Ford Escort,” he says. “Rally driving was my first love, really, and it certainly taught me a great deal about off-road driving skills. My first year was 1977 and that year I had my first major roll at Knockhill. In 1978 I entered the Troassachs Rally,