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Rally News - June13, 2010 ________________________________________________________________________ John Shanks, 1954 - 2010 Scottish motor sport lost another true friend at the weekend when John Shanks lost his long running battle with cancer, but what a fight he put up – 12 years ago he was given a year to live! He started rallying in 1977 and apart from a few outings on stages, he concentrated mainly on navigational events during those halcyon, road rallying days of the 70s and 80s, mainly in a succession of Opel Kadetts and GTEs. As road rallying started to fade away in the 90s he turned his attention to event organisation and marshaling and was long a stalwart of Lanarkshire Car Club. Rallying was in the blood though, and a long running project to rebuild a Lancia Delta Integrale was finally completed just a couple of weeks back. And shoosh, don’t tell the Polis, but he took it out for a wee hurl last Tuesday. It was all perfectly legit of course for the car had been run-in by friends like John Bell and Pete Weall, but John couldn’t resist the urge to have a wee shot himself. But even on his bad days he wouldn’t let folks and events down, and if all he could manage was to marshal on a Passage Control then that’s what he’d do. I’m sure we’d all wish to send our condolences to his wife Morag, and daughters Fiona and Jennifer. He became a Granddad just a couple of weeks back too. Aye, we’ll all miss him. ________________________________________________________________________ Tragedy Strikes on the Dukeries. Saturday’s Dukeries Rally was marred by a fatal accident. Welsh brothers Martyn and Richard Lewis were competing in this Vauxhall Nova when the car left the road and hit a tree on the 7th of 10 stages. 32 year old Martyn succumbed to his injuries although Richard was later released from hospital on Sunday. Steve Perez and Paul Spooner won the shortened event in their Ford Focus WRC from Charlie Payne and Damien Cole, but Andy Burton retired with engine trouble. Finishing in 22nd place overall and 2nd in class were Allan McDowall and Gavin Heseltine in their Opel Kadett, while in 38th place making a return to the sport after some 9 years was Alastair McSkimming with Tony Graham in a newly built MG Metro 6R4. Andrew Falconer was co-driving for Tristan Pye in the N15 Impreza and they finished 6th overall. ** Date Change - UTS Cheviot Keith Knox Stages Rally Due to run on the Otterburn ranges over the weekend of 23/24 October, the Cheviot has been forced to change its date to Sunday 10th October. Now, the wide awake amongst you will quickly grasp that there is a bit of a date clash here! Unfortunately, this is the same weekend that the brand new Mull Rally, is due to take place on ‘the island’ and the clash is completely unavoidable. The Cheviot organisers were faced with the choice of 10th, or no rally at all. As you can all appreciate, military needs dictate when the Otterburn ranges are available and any change to military plans understandably take priority. The Lindisfarne Rally was another casualty of this change of plans and has already been cancelled. ** IRC - 2010 RACMSA Rally Of Scotland, 15-17 October Last year, some bright spark thought running the Rally of Scotland as the final round of the International Rally of Scotland at the end of November would be a good idea, especially with planned live TV coverage from the event. November? Scotland? True to form, it was wet and cold and dark most of the time, so it made sense to run this year’s event a bit earlier. Nice one boys. This year the RoS will be the penultimate round and it will run at the beginning of October – provided the host nation can fit it into an already packed calendar with the McRae Stages and the Mull Rally scheduled to run at the same time. Numpties rule again. Fortunately, it all got sorted out with some goodwill shown by those adversely affected by this international date shuffling. Plans for this year’s 3 day event were revealed at a promotional event last week where it was announced that Gleneagles Hotel will be backing this year’s event while the route will feature a central Service Park at Perth Airport. This year again there will be two runs at the ‘spectator-special’ Scone Palace before tackling forests stages in Perthshire & Stirling ahead of the Stirling Castle Ceremonial Finish. Clerk of the Course Iain Campbell commented: “This year’s route builds on the successes from 2009 but also compacts the full itinerary with reconnaissance, scrutineering and the competition all taking place over Thursday to Sunday. This is to make the event even more attractive to our amateur competitors, but keeps to the spirit and challenge of Scotland’s best stages. To finish with the monstrous Loch Ard, described by Kris Meeke as ‘the best stage in the world’ is going to mean the action keeps going right until the very end. Sunday is going to be a real test with over 93 kms of special stages, yet only 15 minutes of remote service around midday. At a remote service only parts carried in the competing car can be fitted so the competitors will have to drive as much with their brains as their right foot!" “The Colin McRae Forest Stages Rally takes place in Perth three weekends before us and they wished to use some of the Errochty stage, but have very kindly offered us exclusive access to this test to ensure we have the very best to offer our international competitors and armchair fans watching this live on Eurosport. I am very grateful to them for their generosity.” Paul Bush OBE, Chief Operating Officer at EventScotland, the national events agency, adds: “To generate more than £1 million in economic impact and more than £2 million in media exposure for Scotland last year is a great achievement and testament to the value of hosting motor sport events. Last year’s Rally of Scotland was a huge success and in 2010 we will build upon that success to ensure that maximum value is generated and that Scotland reaps further benefits from this world class event.” Ticket prices for this year’s event were also announced and will go on sale from midday on 18 June. The cost of an adult three-day ‘Alba Rally Pass’ has been reduced by ten per cent to £45 (compared to £50 in 2009). The ‘access all areas’ Alba Rally Pass provides fans with entrance and car parking at all the event’s Special Stages as well as the Perth Airport Service Park, the Ceremonial Start at Scone Palace and the Ceremonial Finish at Stirling Castle. Individual tickets for the Ceremonial Start and both Scone Palace tests offer even greater value. They’ve been reduced from £20 to £10. And there’s more - all accompanied children aged 15 and under will be admitted free, but please check details of prices on the event website because there are the usual conditions and concessions – but you get the idea! ** Severn Valley Clubmans Rally, Wales, June 5th I mentioned the other day that Malloch Nicoll and Martin Forrest were 4th overall on the Severn Valley Clubmans Rally in Wales, but I missed out young Ruary MacLeod who was doing the event in his Honda with Will Rogers ahead of the RSAC Scottish. The idea was to get some mileage in the car, but the suspension broke on SS4 – and they say Scottish stages are rough! ** Mad Mentul Rules - Again! When he first appeared on the Scottish stage, Alastair McSkimming was rather quickly given the nickname ‘Mad Mentul MacSkimming’ (note the correct ethnic and period spelling of the word ‘mentul’ this is not a typo!) but I can’t remember exactly why. It had nothing to do with his manner or intellect outside the car, but behind the wheel he was something else. In fact his antics and those of Kenny Stewart, Chris Wagner and Jim Carty earned themselves a collective gangland grouping called ‘The Wild Bunch’. Nowadays they’d be hooligans, but back then their antics were regarded as youthful high spirits. Well, he’s back. After 9 years away from the driving seat Alastair McSkimming returned at the weekend on the Dukeries with the end-result of a long running project to build a Metro 6R4. Although he started with a MkI then a MkII, then a Talbot Sunbeam and MkIII, he latterly campaigned a Metro 6R4. After that he sponsored the Scottish Rally Championship for a few years through his company ‘New Pig’ but the call of the forests has proved too strong and he’s back. Plans remain fluid at present but keep an eye out, and stand well back if you see him coming. ** Mark McCulloch Goes ‘Back To The Future’ After a good run on the Jim Clark in his Subaru Impreza, Mark McCulloch is reviewing his future plans. The 23 year old is keen to broaden his experience, but not at the expense of depleting his wallet and so intends to switch back to 2WD and intends to contest the six-round BRC Challenge next season. With that in mind he is building a Peugeot 205, similar to the car in which he won the Scottish Junior Championship in 2008, to contest the Scottish Rally on June 26th. "The fight is now on to get the car ready in time", said Mark: "We have less than three weeks to turn it from a bare shell into a fully functioning rally car, and I'm very grateful to everyone who is helping with the build." "I'm really up for the move back to the 205's, and as we look forward to next year, it's got to be the right move", he continued: "The BRC Challenge is hotly-contested, and will give us the chance to try some new events across the UK". Mark has also received a major boost with the announcement of a new sponsor - the Ford Bank Country House Hotel at Wigtown. Said Mark: "I'm very appreciative of the support both Scott and Kerry are giving us, as well as all of our present sponsors, namely: Hardie Civil Engineering, Gavin Milven Plant Hire, AD Tool Hire, Gareth Murphy Plumbing and Heating, TMAC Van Hire and Signright Graphix". Purely as an aside, the mere mention of the Ford Bank Country House Hotel brought a misty eyed look to dear ol’ Jaggy who recalled an incident many years ago following the finish of the Baldoon Stages at Fordbank. The owners at that time had no idea what would happen after the rally and because they were quiet all day, hadn’t quite prepared themselves for the ravenous, thirsty hordes who suddenly descended ‘en masse’ on their genteel hostelry after the rally. By the time Jaggy got there, the cupboard was bare. All that was left for eating was a catering sized platter (about the diameter of a 15 inch Minilite with tyre) of rhubarb tart which was duly presented to this poor wee starving soul by mine host who then accompanied Jaggy to the bottom of the garden where they sat under the branches of a huge tree with aforementioned tart and a bottle of 5 star brandy. By goad that wis SOME picnic! ** And finally, having survived the Jim Clark on tenterhooks ‘cos his wife Karen was on the verge of going into labour, it looks as though Mike Rae will be free to do the Scottish after all. Karen gave birth to baby Oliver last Tuesday. Congrats all round. ** |