While the Millenium Stadium Stage was at its noisiest best last night, news reached rally headquarters in Wales Rally GB that one of Britain's most popular rally drivers, had booked into his final Parc Ferme.

Tony Anthony Fall suffered a heart attack and passed away peacefully in his sleep at the age of 67. At the time, he was in Africa visiting the Classic Safari Rally.

Fall started his motoring career as a salesman in his native Yorkshire which gave him the chance to take up rallying as a spare time hobby in Mini Cooper cars. He graduated into the BMC team, and when this programme ended, he branched out and rallied for a remarkably wide selection of manufacturers. These included VW, BMW, Lancia, Peugeot, Ford and Datsun.

One of his earliest results was 18th overall on the RAC Rally of Great Britain in 1972 in a Datsun 240Z - the model of car he used up to recent times in historic rallies.

When his driving career came to an end he set up Dealer Opel Team in Britain, and the success of this operation led to him moving to Germany as Director of Motorsport at Opel where he masterminded the Ascona 400 project. This car won a world championship rally on only its second appearance in 1980. It was then used on world championship rallies and finally brought Walter Rohrl his second world drivers' title in 1982.

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