November 23, 1945 – British rally racer Tony Pond is born

British rally driver Tony Pond was born on this day in 1945. Driving a Mini Cooper S in the early 1960s Pond got his start participating in the weekly Saturday night road rallies in the home counties around London. Finding success he persuaded a Ford dealer in his hometown, Norman Reeves of Uxbridge, to prepare and supply him with an Escort RS1600 for the Mexico Rally Championship, in which he took second. He followed this with a top ten finish in the Scottish International Rally, giving Reeves incentive to supply a car for the next full season. He would go on to race in a variety of vehicles, including Opel, Triumph, Datsun, Nissan, Vauxhall, finishing his career with Austin Rover. He partially retired from racing in 1986 but remained with Austin Rover as a development driver. In 1990, driving a Rover Vitesse, he became the first person to race a production course around the Isle of Man TT racecourse to have an average lap speed exceeding 100 miles per hour. Pond passed away due to pancreatic cancer in 2002. ImagesPond driving a Talbot Sunbeam Lotus at the 1979 Manx International Rally. By Alan Lewis, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7786512Tony Pond’s Triump TR7 V8 at the British Motoring Heritage Museum.By Paul Brown – originally posted to Flickr as Tr7 v8 rally car, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4486268