WILL GOLLOP ‘THE GRAND PRIX WINS WERE THE BEST’

Will Gollop remains the most recent home-grown driver to have claimed an FIA rallycross crown in the discipline’s top category, and that was back in 1992. And he did so in a monstrous, Bi-Turbo MG Metro 6R4.

Gollop hails from just up the road from Lydden Hill, rallycross’s birthplace, and it was the creation of this branch of motorsport that attracted him into competition.

Having proved himself in two-wheel-drive categories, Gollop secured works support to step into the top category with Austin Rover’s banned Group B rally machine. When Group B was also banned from rallycross, Gollop built Peugeots, an ill-fated 309 before a 306, and claimed further British championship titles, adding to his three Rallycross Grand Prix wins.

His retirement from driving turned Gollop into team boss, and his G-Tech Motorsport concern ran protege Andrew Jordan in the British Rallycross Championship in 2006 and 2007, just missing out on the title. Almost 30 years after claiming the European crown, Gollop took the time to answer MN readers’ questions.

Question: How did you get into motorsport, and rallycross?

Johannes Schiller Via Instagram

Will Gollop: “I started when I was 20 years old, in 1970 in autocross and I got into it because Lydden Hill was the local track. I remember being 17 and the first rallycross being down there, I worked as an agricultural engineering apprentice in Canterbury and some of the lads in the workshop were keen on this new sport of rallycross.”

Question: Why did you choose to race Saabs?

David Smith Via Instagram

“Because it was different. I spent a fair bit of time in a Mini in autocross and then rallycross, and we decided to sell the Mini because we needed the money or something, the usual story. I bought a Triumph Toledo and put a Dolomite Sprint engine in it. That didn’t go so well, it was rear-wheel drive and I don’t know why I