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Rally News - Saturday 1st August
Life Under Canvas
It was in 1965 that Ingliston hosted its first motor race. Anyone who remembers the original circuit will remember two things, it was tight and twisty and the Armco was awfy close to the track – and so were the trees up at Caravan Corner! Sadly, increasing track safety requirements meant that racing was doomed and it held its last race some 30 years after the first. Enter the sport of rallying. Dunfermline Car Club has been a prime mover in keeping motor sport at the venue, but doubts have been expressed over the facility’s future. However, much of that seems to have been laid to rest. Although the Royal Highland Society continues to invest in the grounds, fears about its future have been aired for years, especially with Edinburgh airport wanting to expand. However, those plans have been shelved while additional plans to improve the rail rinks and build a new tram line from Edinburgh city centre have also been scaled back due to huge escalating costs. So it would appear that the venue is safe till at least the year 2030.
John Cockburn was CLO at Ingliston and brought his 4.4 litre Tomcat with paddle shift, clutchless gearbox, along for the day. He was letting certain people try it out (he didn’t let me near it though!) and the Clerk of the Course used it a couple of times to check the stage layouts. John’s idea was to give folk a bit of an insight into hill rallying which could do with a few more entries to keep the sport moving forward. Whatever, it sounded minted bellowing its way around Ingliston. Power? It’s got more horse than a John Wayne western. Just one thing though, it’s the not easiest of motors to get in and out of!
Nigel Atkinson’s outing at Ingliston was short-lived. He had just recently acquired the Murray Grierson built, ex-Jim Oddy Metro 4R2. Apparently negotiations to purchase the Metro commenced some two years ago and were only concluded two months back, so this was Nigel’s first outing in the rear wheel drive Hart 420R powered machine. Sadly a wee dunt on the nose stopped play on the third stage. No real damage, but Nigel reckons he faces a huge learning curve with the new machine.
Chris Singer appeared with a new car at Ingliston. The well-sorted and rapid wee Peugeot 106 has been sold and replaced with a Mitsubishi Lancer EVO6. He did Otterburn with the car first time out a couple of weeks back and although Ingliston is not ideally suited to whiz-bang 4WDs he was there just to get miles on the car. After running with power steering on the Peugeot he couldn’t get to grips with the non-powered stuff on the Lancer so fitted power steering. But this upset the water injection system somehow so it had to come off again. He finished 5th but he’s still not sure if he likes it!
Garry Pearson turned up at Ingliston in the family Corsa, and not the Peugeot 205. The first time he drove the car was off the trailer! However, there was no sign of Pop, Monty. Garry said he was at Kelso Show, so he was here on his own with Monty’s pride and joy. Things went well until the air filter caught fire on the first day and on the second day, with Dad now in attendance, the alternator failed causing them maximums on two stages. Otherwise he would have done a lot better than 26th first time out in the Corsa. Who says this rallying lark is expensive?
Andrew Blackhall was having a whale of a time at Ingliston but missed out on the last two stages with gearbox trouble. I reckoned it was a Kellogg’s gearbox – full of crunches. But he was telling me he bought the Fiesta, rally-prepared with a cage and everything, plus an 11 month MOT, for only 1250 quid three weeks before the rally.
Bumped into Chief Bear Cub, Steve Davies at Ingliston. He was down helping out 17 year old Alasdair MacCrone on his first rally. The Corsa had the wrong gearing for Ingliston but the wee brother of John MacCrone was only here for the experience. When asked how things were going and how the boy was doing, Steve shook his head like a weary old sheep dug, and his answer spoke volumes: “He’s a MacCrone, isn’t he?” Oddly enough, I knew exactly what he meant. The whole MacCrone family have petrol running through their veins. Alasdair passed his driving test just six weeks ago, his BARS test two weeks ago and this was his first event. Steve said later: “He took me for me run up a weel kent stretch of road just the other night. I thought – Crikey not another one!”
Another Mull escapee was on the mainland for Ingliston. Donald Brown was down with son Alec, but not with the Sunbeam. Alec was using John Boyd’s Citroen Saxo. Alec was there fore two reasons, to try out front wheel drive and perhaps sort out a deal to buy the car if he liked it. Well, canny old Dad that he is, Donald wasn’t telling the youngster any stage times whilst Alec got acquainted with FWD. He finished 23rd overall, didn’t put a mark on the car, and reckons FWD is the way forward – even it it’s not as much fun as RWD. So we wait to see what Alec turns up with in Mull in two months time.
So who impressed Jaggy the most at the two day event at Ingliston? Come in car 54. It was 21 year old Michelle Rugg’s first ever rally. Dad had built the Fiesta, but the engine blew just a week before the rally so it had a standard unit installed for the Mercury Motorsport weekend. It also had Dad, Dougie, riding shotgun. Imagine that, your first rally, and you’ve got your Dad sitting in the car that he built. No pressure then, eh? Well, good on her, she finished, but the most impressive thing was that on every second run of each stage she was quicker than the first. Not just quicker, but noticeably quicker. And by the end of the day she was shaving bales with the best of them. And not only that she finished the penultimate two stages with no brakes, so there was some frantic activity going on to get the car fixed before the final two. And the lass was still unfazed. Gaun yersel Michelle.
No, this is not a picture of a parachutist landing at Ingliston. Apparently some enterprising crews and marshals had taken advantage of a Halford summer deal. For a hundred quid, you got a four person tent, four sleeping bags, two double airbeds and two torches – but no instructions! It was like watching an octopus trying to mate with a set of bagpipes! So what if it did take a while to figure out, it was still a lot cheaper than B&B for the team. Apparently the roadkill burgers on the barbie went down a treat.
And finally, Raymond Mann inadvertently caused a stooshie in Rally HQ at the end of the rally. Raymond is rallying’s answer to Harry Potter, he’s a wizard with computers although he’s got a few (a good few!) years on the child star. Anyway he was busy churning out results during the two days and if he finds out what has happened to retiring competitors he likes to note it on the results. Trouble is, he’s only got space for a maximum of two words. So when he heard about Nigel Atkinson’s accident he inserted the explanation “Hit Pole”. Well, I was most upset when I heard that, and asked how the Pole was and how he knew it was a Pole that Nigel hit. Raymond looked perplexed. So I asked him again how he knew it was a Pole and not a Czech or a German. Well, the penny dropped eventually. “Ya daft eedjit,” said Raymond, “it was a telegraph pole.”
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