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Rally News - Saturday 12th September More from the Merrick Steve Bannister and Louise Sutherland looked as though were auditioning for Kwik-Fit on the Merrick. On Stage 4, ‘Ethel’ picked up a rear puncture forcing Steve to pull over and stop. With the jack strapped to the side of Louise’ seat she was out of her seat like a gazelle and jacking the car up while Steve, sprachled out his side like a wounded buffalo, with the nut-gun. As he’s spinning off the nuts he’s shouting over at Louise with a few gentle and endearing Yorkshire words of encouragement suggesting that she should be round his side jacking the car up. Meanwhile Louise, was shouting back, wondering where he was with the bleedin’ nut-gun. Yup, you’ve guessed, they have a double puncture. Teamwork, eh? Mind you I had to laugh on the early stages. Steve said he was having problems with the heated windscreen not clearing the condensation. Some of the vertical segments were not working and Steve described it like “driving through a barcode!” At service Stuart McQueen was reminiscing between fags. It’s 12 years since he last drove a FWD car in the woods, although he did start the Jim Clark with the Puma but retired with a faulty crank sensor and didn’t finish it. He had forgotten just how much hard work these front wheel drive cars are with grippy tyres! And he’s not getting any younger! Mike Grant had all sorts of bother trying to get to the rally. When he went to load up the car, he found the garage and office under inches of water. The overnight rains in Elgin had caused havoc in the area and had washed away roads and made others impassable. Eventually he got everything loaded up, found a dry route out of the place – eventually – and set off for Newton Stewart, leaving the womenfolk to mop up. One up for chauvinism, eh? When Mark McCulloch ripped the exhaust off the Corsa, the din inside the wee car was so bad he couldn’t hear Craig Wallace even through the intercom, so they resorted to hand signals. Apparently they were getting quite proficient by the end of the rally with Craig holding up the relevant number of fingers in one hand and pointing with the other. But as Mark recalled, “We were buggered with anything over a 5!” Unusually, Mike Dymock got two punctures on the Chevette, and more unusually, they were both on the same side, the co-drivers; side. Now this was puzzling because in place of James Crichton was the sylph-like figure of Christine brown – and James is not sylph-like! This caused great debate in the camp. Since Christine is lighter (a heckuva lot lighter- sorry James!) then her side should have been fine, skipping over the rocks instead of through them. Eventually it was decided that because Christine’s side of the car was lighter, Mike was over-compensating and was probably further into the left hand ditches than his side. See, there’s a technical answer to every problem. Having swapped back from his Subaru to the Ford Ka, Peter Taylor’s co-driver Paul Hughes said it made the Notes a lot easier - everything below 6 is flat in a Ka! The Bears were expecting this year’s Colin McRae Stages Rally to be a lot less hectic than last year. That was a one-off, never to be repeated memorial to a supportive club member and international star. There was going to be no repeat of last year’s expensive and time-consuming exercise – and then the phone rang, and just kept on ringing. We now know that Ken Block is coming, but his FIA Subaru is not eligible to contest the Coltness National B rally, so we either run him as Course Car or he gets himself a new motor. Whatever, it’s great that he wants to come back. The event will also play host to the World Launch of the Corgi Model ‘McRae Collection’ a series of 14 model cars which perfectly capture Colin’s rallying career. Corgie will announce this series at the rally on the Friday night and will have on hand, Colin’s first ever competition car, his Championship winning autotest Mini 1275. Once the Mini goes on sale it will be followed by the Sunbeam and the Nova then the Fords and Subarus. It sounds like a must for all rally fans. Kris Meeke is coming too, and if he is not in his Peugeot 207 S2000 car he will be in a MkII, and if Peugeot does attend officially, then Jan Kopecky might just try and persuade Skoda to bring along a Fabia. Fingers crossed. Now here’s something you maybe didn’t know, Kris is just as quick on a computer console as he is in a car, which is handy. On Friday night there will be a one of those large flat panel TV screens rigged up to a competition seat and connected to the new Dirt II driving game. Kris is going to set a time and others are going to try and beat it. It also looks as though there will be other activities on the night too. By the way, the Entry Fee for this year’s McRae Stages is £465, but there is an ‘overseas’ discount of £100. This was introduced a few years back to try and encourage more of the Irish drivers to come over and it worked because it offsets the extortionate ferry fare. But those enterprising youngsters Craig Rutherford and John MacCrone from the Island of Mull have already been on the phone claiming their ‘overseas’ discount. It is currently being debated! Fly wee rascals. I don’t know if any of you saw any of the John MacCrone video clips on YouTube taken when he was doing Mull last year, but if you did, then you’ll know that the last thing he needs for this year’s Tunnock’s Tour of Mull is more power. Guess what? He’ll be driving an Andrew Wood Motorsport Honda Civic on this year’s event in 3 weeks time in place of the Peugeot 205. Mind you, it set me wondering, what age do you have to be to get your pilot’s licence? As mentioned earlier this month, Andy Knight is doing Mull again this year. The 1990 and ’91 winner was out on the Quinton and didn’t finish, so went to the Woodpecker earlier this month. The 1.4 Corsa still needs some sorting, but at leats he finished this time, 51st overall and 5th in class. Speaking of Mull, this year’s Tunnock’s Tour marks the 40th anniversary of the first ever rally held on the island. To celebrate this, 2300 Car Club has persuaded the good folks of Mull to let them run their ‘city centre special’ through Tobermory again. The last time they did that was at the Millennium and it was a hoot. If you are coming over to Mull this year, remember there is a pre-event Forum in the Aros Hall on Tobermory Main Street on the Thursday night where the top stars will chat with, and be interviewed by, a special ‘celebrity’ person. Entry to this event, as ever, is free. Mark McCulloch has won this year's John Easson Award which will give him a free Entry and help with susbistence to tackkle this year's Tunnock's Tour of Mull Rally and also provide him with some additional rally driving tution. The 22 year old from Newton Stewart travelled to Preston to take part in a one on one interview with the panel of judges along with the other finalists.Mark emerged as winner after a very close run contest with runner up Sara Williams. 20 yrs. old Sara from Brecon made a very determined challenge for the award. With five rounds gone in the Hytorc Scottish Tarmack Championship, Bruce davidsons leads on 137 points from Jim Sharp with 106, Shaun Sinclair 99, Ian Forgan 96 and Wattie Warwick also on 96. ** |