Tony Pond

Tony Pond (23 November 1945 – 7 February 2002) was a British rally driver.

Career

Pond's first outings in a rally car were on the then regular (in the early '60s) Saturday night road rallies in the home counties around London, driving a Mini Cooper S. Using the same car he also became successful at auto-testing – the practice of manoeuvering the car against the clock around a series of cones.

Pond then prepared a Lotus Cortina for an attempt on the Lombard RAC Round Britain Rally, and was running in the top twenty when a visit to a ditch in icy conditions put an end to the outing.

At this time, Ford had launched the Mexico Rally Championship, and Pond persuaded the local Ford dealer in his home town, Norman Reeves of Uxbridge, to prepare and supply a car for the Championship. He finished second overall, the reward for which was a drive in a works supported Escort RS1600 on the Scottish International Rally. He finished in the top ten, which was enough incentive for Norman Reeves to prepare and supply him with an ex-factory Escort RS1600 for a season.

Using this car, Pond was a regular top ten finisher in the British Rally Championship, competing against and beating the likes of Jimmy McRae (Colin's father) and Russell Brookes, culminating in a third place on the Welsh International Rally in 1973, beating Tony Fall into fourth place. At this time Fall was competitions manager for the Dealer Opel Team (DOT), and the offer of a works supported drive was not long in coming.

Unfortunately, although DOT and Pond were successful with the 2 litre Opel Kadett, General Motors had taken the decision to stop selling Opels in the UK and concentrate on the Vauxhall brand, and so DOT was disbanded. In 1975 he won the Avon Tour of Britain driving a privately entered Escort RS2000 - the Tour was a mixture of special stages and race circuits, and rally drivers tended to dominate. Pond was very quickly approached by British Leyland to take on the Triumph TR7. 1976 until 1978, saw him in the Triumph then in 1979 he championed a Talbot Sunbeam Lotus before returning to the TR7 in 1980, completing a number of outings for the British Leyland factory team.

Around 1979-1982, Pond also often visited South Africa on weekends to pilot the factory-entered Datsun Stanza, with navigator Richard Leeke, in the SA National Rally Championship as Datsun's (later Nissan SA) number 1 driver. In 1981, he won the Radio 5 Rally outright against stiff competition like Geoff Mortimer in a Chevrolet Chevair and Jan Hettema, a double-Springbok, in a Toyota Corolla.

1981 through to the end of 1984 had Pond competing with varying success in a varied selection of cars, including the Datsun Violet, Vauxhall Chevette HSR, Nissan Violet, Nissan 240RS and Rover SD1. For the 1985 season, Pond was recruited by the Austin Rover dealer team to drive the Group B MG Metro 6R4. Finishing third overall on the 6R4's international debut at the Lombard R.A.C. Rally, Pond, improving on his 4th place overall in the 1975 and 1978 events, gave the car its best-ever finish on a World Rally event. He stayed with the Austin Rover team until 1986 when the Group B formula was cancelled and the cars banned after a number of fatal accidents.

Pond mostly retired from Rallying at the end of 1986, however, he was retained on Austin Rover's books as a development driver, and was involved in the design and production of the MG F.

In 1988, Pond attempted to achieve the first-ever average 100 mph lap around the Isle of Man TT motorcycle race circuit in a standard-specification production Rover Vitesse, but was unsuccessful, largely due to wet weather on the mountain section of the course. For his second attempt on 6 June 1990 he again drove a demonstration lap using a standard production Rover 827 Vitesse, which became the first production car to average over 100 mph around the course. This feat stood until 2011, when Mark Higgins bettered the time and later improved on his own performances.

Touring Cars and One-Make Racing

In 1983 and 1984, Pond competed sporadically in touring car racing in Britain and Europe, first in an MG Metro Turbo then a Rover Vitesse. He exclusively drove cars from Austin Rover Group. His best performances were in the British Saloon Car Championship, the highlights being a class win at Donington in 1983 and winning outright Silverstone in 1984 and scoring three other podiums, before ARG withdrew from the series.

In 1987, Pond guested in the MG Maestro Challenge at the Rally Cwm Gwendraith in Wales.

In 1988 and 1989, Pond guested in the MG Metro 6R4 Trophy race in Birmingham, winning both times.

Motorcycling

Throughout his life, Pond was also a keen motorcyclist, riding fast road bikes and trials bikes successfully.[citation needed]

Death

Pond succumbed to pancreatic cancer in 2002 and is survived by his wife, Nikki, and son, James.

Racing record

Complete IMC results

Year	Entrant	Car	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
1970	Tony Pond	Ford Cortina Lotus	MON	SWE	ITA	KEN	AUT	GRE	GBR Ret

Complete WRC results

Year	Entrant	Car	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	WDC	Pts
1974	Dealer Team Opel	Opel Ascona	MON	SWE	POR	KEN	GRE	FIN	ITA	CAN	USA	GBR Ret	FRA			N/A	N/A
1975	Dealer Team Opel	Opel Kadett GT/E	MON	SWE	KEN	GRE	MOR	POR	FIN	ITA	FRA	GBR 4				N/A	N/A
1976	British Leyland Cars	Triumph TR7	MON	SWE	POR	KEN	GRC	MOR	FIN	ITA	FRA	GBR Ret				N/A	N/A
1977	British Leyland Cars	Triumph TR7	MON	SWE	POR	KEN	NZL	GRC	FIN	CAN	ITA	FRA Ret	GBR 8			N/A	N/A
1978	British Leyland Cars	Triumph TR7 V8	MON	SWE	KEN	POR	GRE	FIN	CAN	ITA	CIV	FRA Ret				N/A	N/A
British Airways											GBR 4
1979	Talbot Sport	Talbot Sunbeam Lotus	MON	SWE	POR	KEN	GRE	NZL	FIN	CAN	ITA 4	FRA				22nd	10
Chrysler Competitions Centre											GBR Ret	CIV
1980	British Leyland Cars	Triumph TR7 V8	MON	SWE	POR Ret	KEN	GRC	ARG	FIN	NZL	ITA	FRA	GBR 7	CIV		50th	4
1981	Team Datsun Europe	Datsun 160J	MON	SWE	POR 5	KEN										16th	20
Datsun Violet GT					FRA 3	GRC	ARG	BRA	FIN	ITA Ret	CIV
Dealer Team Vauxhall	Vauxhall Chevette 2300 HSR												GBR Ret
1982	Team Nissan Europe	Nissan Violet GT	MON	SWE	POR Ret											23rd	10
D.T. Dobie & Co	Nissan Violet GTS				KEN 4	FRA
N.I. Theocharakis S.A.						GRE Ret
Nissan Motor Co Ltd.							NZL Ret	BRA	FIN	ITA	CIV
Blydenstein Racing	Vauxhall Chevette 2300 HSR												GBR Ret
1983	Team Nissan Europe	Nissan 240RS	MON	SWE	POR	KEN	FRA 6	GRE	NZL	ARG	FIN	ITA	CIV	GBR		28th	6
1984	Unipart Rallying	Rover Vitesse	MON	SWE	POR	KEN	FRA	GRE	NZL	ARG	FIN	ITA	CIV	GBR Ret		NC	0
1985	Computervision Rallying with Mobil	MG Metro 6R4	MON	SWE	POR	KEN	FRA	GRE	NZL	ARG	FIN	ITA	CIV	GBR 3		20th	12
1986	Austin Rover World Rally Team	MG Metro 6R4	MON Ret	SWE	POR Ret	KEN	FRA Ret	GRE	NZL	ARG	FIN	CIV	ITA Ret	GBR 6	USA	36th	6

Complete British Saloon Car Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap.)

Year	Team	Car	Class	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	DC	Pts	Class
1983	Unipart with Daily Express	MG Metro Turbo	B	SIL	OUL	THR	BRH Ret	THR ovr:6 cls:2	SIL Ret	DON ovr:5 cls:2	SIL ovr:25 cls:5	DON ovr:6 cls:1	BRH Ret	SIL ovr:17 cls:3	8th	31	4th
1984	Team Sanyo Racing with Esso	Rover Vitesse	D	DON ovr:3 cls:3	SIL ovr:1 cls:1	OUL ovr:6 cls:6	THR ovr:2 cls:2	THR ovr:3 cls:3	SIL ovr:5 cls:5	SNE	BRH	BRH	DON	SIL	NC	0	NC
Source:

Complete European Touring Car Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Team	Car	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	DC	Pts
1983	United Kingdom Unipart with Daily Express	MG Metro Turbo	MNZ	VAL	DON	PER	MUG	BRN	ZEL	NUR	SAL	SPA	SIL Ret	ZOL	NC	0
1984	United Kingdom Austin Rover Group	Rover Vitesse	MNZ	VAL	DON	PER	BRN	ZEL Ret	SAL	NUR	SPA	SIL NC	ZOL 8	MUG	NC	0
Source:

External links

- EWRC Profile page