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Rally News - April 26, 2010 Granite Chippings, but first, Malyasia Even further away than Mull is a place called Malaysia and Alister McRae was taking part in the Asia Pacific Rally of Malaysia at the weekend. Before the rally Alister said: "I did three rallies in the PROTON Satria Neo S2000 at the end of last season and, straight away, I knew the car was competitive. Now we have a whole year of competition ahead of us, it's going to be great. I've spent much of the winter season training for the FIA Asia Pacific Rally Championship; my co-driver Bill Hayes is a semi-professional cyclist, so we've been doing loads of work on the bike. I'm in better shape now than I have ever been throughout my career, so I'm not concerned about the hot conditions we're going to face in Malaysia this week. I think we're probably in for some rain on the event, which will make the roads really slippery. One of the key elements to success on this event will be getting the tyres right. We don't just need to make the right selection of tyre, we need to make sure we have made the right cut into the tyres. I'm really looking forward to working with PROTON, MEM and Chris [Atkinson] this season." And so it turned out, well nearly! McRae took the lead on the Second Leg to go into Sunday’s final section with 27 seconds in hand over second placed Japanese driver Katsu Taguchi in a Lancer Evo X, but it all went wrong at the end of Stage 10 with six more stages to go. McRae’s Proton Satria Neo S2000 hit a nasty bump and damaged its radiator. The car was going no further. “But that's rallying. You can have a perfect day and then you pray everything will be fine the next. But sometimes it don't work out that way,” said Alister. Alister's team mate Chris Atkinson also failed to finish when his Proton succumbed to electrical failure. **** Closer to home, the Scots had a bad weekend in Carlisle as well. Euan Thorburn finished 14th overall and 9th in class on the Pirelli International while David Bogie was unable to re-start Day 2 in his Lancer. Dave Weston Jnr rolled in SS10 (of 12) and both John MacCrone and John Boyd went out in their Fiestas. MacCrone went off in SS8 and Boyd went off in SS4 after a wheel fell off! **** Granite Chippings Donnie MacDonald was left co-driverless at the Granite when Rob Fagg phoned and said he was marooned on the Isle of Man. Apparently there were no flights off the island because of the smokey Icelandic rumblings and he wouldn’t have been there on time if he had to go for the ferry and drive. So Paul Beaton was pressed into service. Some excuse, eh? Young David Wilson is getting dog’s abuse these days courtesy of YouTube. Apparently some of his in-car footage has been put up on the web and has been drawing attention and comment. All his mates are pulling his leg about him being so casual in the car. You see, he drives with one hand. Everyone else has both hands on the wheel at all times, except when changing gear, but the only time David has both hands on the wheel is when he runs out of steering and needs all hands on deck so to speak! He’s been watching too many Starsky and Hutch re-runs. Check it out for yourself (cut and paste this into your browser): www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRi4PXahgXg Bill ‘Lucky’ Sturrock broke his front tooth when he was eating a bacon roll at Aboyne on Saturday morning. Unfazed he went off in search of superglue and promptly stuck it back in! And no it wasn’t one of his own teeth, it was part of a plate, but his dentist is going to have a hell of job removing the superglue! Crispy bacon sandwich anyone? Anyway, he needed to get his tooth back in, it was his 50th birthday party alter that night after the Granite and with things running late at the rally, guess who was nearly late for his own party? I think the big surprise was not so much that he’s reached the half century. But the fact that he has reached it with his faculties mostly intact. Reay MacKay had a ‘For Sale’ sign on his Lancer. He hasn’t bought anything else yet, but he fancies something different. He’s still got the Metro but the engine hasn’t been returned from the builder after it’s Mull dismantling. Frank Kelly’s been a busy boy of late. He bumped the car on the Border and straightened it, then did it again in Ireland two weeks before the Granite. “Don’t lean on the paint” he said, “it’s still wet!” After his Border incident when the Lancer caught fire under the bonnet, Craig McMiken sent his turbo away for a repair and got the dreaded phone call: “It’s knackered, you need a new one.” It wasn’t a bad fire, but when the heat shield worked loose the heat caused the steering column boot to catch fire and then burnt the wiring loom. Jim Howie’s getting awfy ambitious in his old age. Not only has mastered the art of constructing fibreglass panels for Metros and other things, he’s now working with Kevlar and has made a few roof skins and bonnets for MkIIs. The Jarrett household in the north west must be an interesting place to spend time as a fly on the wall these days. Charlie Jarrett had his first run out in the Lancer since the engine failure on the Merrick, but there’s trouble at home. His wife Kirsty started rallying in a Honda Civic this year and has now scored 3 finishes from 3 starts. That’s a 100% finishing record so far. At least Charlie finished the Granite. He now hates to be on the losing side of arguments in the house! Roland Wessel appeared in the Subaru again. The Lancia has a new engine, but then developed clutch problems ahead of his home event. He says: “Definitely the Scottish!” Andrew Ritchie reckoned the last time he started a rally in Aboyne was the Checkpoint Stages in 1992. For the Granite City he was using Malcolm Buchanan’s old tyres after striking a deal with his sister-in-law who runs a B&B allowing Malcolm and his team to have cheap digs. Ain’t bartering wonderful? Rubbing it in was Mike Grant. Painted on his rear bumper is the legend ‘Arbuthnot Tow Hook’ with a wee arrow pointing to the towing eye. Mike’s been giving Sandy a hard time about the number of times he passes him in stages these days. “I towed him out of a stage last year,” said Mike, “and I keep telling him that if the Metro breaks down again, I’ll just stop and tow him out of the stage.” Sandy can be very mild, till he’s riled! Stand back everyone. David Ross has ‘patented’ a new handbrake lock for his Lancer. Prior to each event he puts a screw into the handbrake button to make it a fly-off lever, but when he needs to use the handbrake on road sections, he has a special shaped piece of wood which wedges the lever on when stopped. He’s quite proud of it too: “I did the job scientifically, sourcing just the right brush handle from which to carve my block!” Nigel Feeney had a new co-driver for the Granite, Ian Angell, as regular co-pilot Roger Haxton became a dad the week before the rally, and apparently he wasn’t allowed out! Some women are so selfish, eh? As for Nigel, he’s got a new engine, suspension and Brembo brakes coming for the Jim Clark next month. Dougal Brown appeared at the Granite with a Lancer in place of the Subaru. Apparently it was a deal he couldn’t refuse as there was a heckuva spares package with the Lancer. And he needed some them kinda quick too when it brokeadriveshaft. It was good to see Lenny Morrison back behind the wheel. Apart from a run out on the Speyside a couple of years back it is 27 years since he last competed. He got the MkI four years ago and has been rebuilding it ever since. The engine in the MkI is a Pinto which he took out of his MkII and he’s planning to put a Warrior engine into that. His co-driving son Andrew is looking forward to that. Dad’s now got two rally cars – and he can’t drive them both at the same time! Another ‘ol-timer’ hitting the forests was Richard Stewart. He appeared at the Granite with a Subaru and recalled that he first did it in 1971 with a Ford Anglia, in 1972 with a Ford Mexico and a Ford Escort RS1600 in 1973. He sort of retired then and did a few events in a Sunbeam in the early 80s, but here he was with 4WD technology for the first time in Aberdeen. It was also his first time using Route Notes. So what prompted this late-life flourish? “It was either a Bus Pass or a Competition Licence,” he said. Methinks he chose the wise option. By the way, there's a new web-site to keep an eye for fans of the Tour of Mull, henceforth the Mull Rally - it's called:www.mullrally.com. It went live earlier this month and should be regarded as work in progress, but any news will be posted there. And nearly finally. Following post-event Scrutineering and a Steward’s decision, it has been confirmed that Euan Duncan and Peter MacInnes won the Civic Ecosse Challenge class on the Granite City Rally. There was an issue regarding ‘non-standard’ door mirrors and that has now been resolved. It wasn’t a major problem or issue, but as in all one-make challenges, all issues no matter how trivial have to be resolved and this was done promptly and without any rancour. Nice one boys. And finally ... here’s a good tip. Make friends with, and keep in with Bruce McCombie. His Mum bakes exceedingly good cakes. Her Mars Bar cakes are mouthwateringly scrumptious, and I only had two bits. **** |