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Rally Report - 20th July 2009
Albar Kames Trophy Rally, Sunday 19th July To Finish First, First You Must Finish Billy McLelland and Helen Brown won last Sunday’s Albar Kames Trophy Rally at Muirkirk in Ayrshire. It was their first finish of the season - despite Billy’s attempts to knock all fours corners off the Mitsubishi during the day. But once he had got his nose in front there was no way he was giving up. Pushing him hard every inch of the way were Bruce Edwards and Billy McMillan in the Darrian. Every time Bruce upped his pace, Billy did it too. By heck, it wis a grand fecht, so it wis.Naturally, the weather played its part too, it was Kames after all, but only in the early stages. Short, sharp showers swept across the track during the course of the morning. So short that some drivers got it dry, then it got wet and then dried again before the stage was finished. Fortunately it evened itself out, more or less, and it dried up totally for the afternoon. With two non-starters, 26 cars and crews lined up to do battle. McLelland was fastest out of the blocks from Hugh Murdoch and Alister Watson, but Bruce was running in his new engine! Watson blew it on the second stage with a lurid 360 spin up a banking and that left him coming from behind all day. Murdoch was next. On the third stage, he dropped 8 minutes to the leaders, having to get pushed out by the Marshals. Thereafter Edwards was on the case. The Darrian was like a wee Terrier nipping at the heels of a bullock as McLelland charged around Kames skiffing tyre barriers and markers and fraying all four corners of the Lancer as he strove to stay ahead of the Tupperware GT. But I’ll tell you who was impressive, David Johnston in the VW Golf. This was his first run out since the Kames Time Trial last year and was giving Watson a hard time, the front wheel drive Golf almost a match for the rear wheel drive Escort. First casualty of the day was Stuart Taylor. He had a good run on the first stage, but a driveshaft broke on the second stage and the brake caliper jammed, so he was out. Then it was Gordon Alexander’s turn. The wee Nova broke a nut in the tappet assembly and bent a valve. It wasn’t bad, but Gordon wisely pulled out. It was therefore left to Lee Hastings to execute the perfect retirement with style and panache. The Subaru caught a tyre marker on the inside of a bend and just flipped over gently and elegantly on to its roof! At the half way point after 8 of the day’s 16 stages, McLelland had 18 seconds on Edwards with Watson a further 18 adrift and Johnston a further 11 seconds behind that, but only one second in front of fifth placed Neil Thompson in the wee Corsa. McLelland set about the rest of the stages with even more gusto, and it sounded much more dramatic too. His exhaust manifold was breaking up and he daren’t risk trying to weld it in case he made it worse. Edwards was going just as hard too. Normally neat, tidy and quick, he must have been trying. Quite a few times there were puffs of smoke as he locked up tyres under braking but McLelland was in stubborn mode and the car was holding together. Sadly, David Johnston departed the fray when a driveshaft broke and Chris McCallum had to pull out when the Escort’s oil pressure took a dive. It was all over after 14 stages too for the Hyundai Lantra of Graeme and Jordan Mack when a driveshaft broke at the hub and jammed the disc caliper causing the Marshals a few pechs and grunts trying to push the reluctant beast out of the stage. And Bernie Rooney was forced out too before the end. He had been entertaining the crowds with his World War II destroyer smoke screen impression. Oil was leaking from the dipstick hole, and splashing on to the manifold causing thick clouds of white smoke. Bernie couldn’t see a thing in his mirrors for the smoke until he stopped and the smoke billowed over the white car meaning we couldn’t see him either. Meanwhile Sandy Arbuthnott was gradually picking up pace as he used the event to run in his newly rebuilt Metro 6R4. Second fastest time on the penultimate test proved he was on the right track! But it was Billy and Helen’s day. The Lancer stayed in one piece and Billy’s luck held to score his first win and his first finish of the season. The Classes McLelland therefore won Class 4 from Sandy Arbuthnott, while Edwards took Class 3 from Alister Watson, but there was a heckuva battle going on for third in Class 3. Gordon Halley had a furious dice all day long with Fergus Gray in their evenly matched Peugeot 206s. There was little between them till the 13th and 14th tests, when Halley broke away by 4 and 3 seconds to beat his rival by 9 seconds at the finish and finished fifth overall to boot. David Drummond was fifth in Class 3. Sneaking in between Halley and Gray over the closing stages was Class 2 winner, Blair McCulloch in the Vauxhall Nova. He beat Steven Smith in the 205 who had cut short his holiday in Cyprus just to do Kames! Only 2 seconds behind Smith at the finish was Neil Thompson who earlier looked to be out of the rally when he limped out of the 9th stage jammed in third gear. The gear linkage had broken. However, the boys managed to weld it up using Billy McLelland’s welding gear and he was soon back on track. Iain Haining was fourth in class even though he professes not to like tarmac and prefers grush while Gavin Lloyd was fifth after he too broke his gear linkage. Callum Atkinson started well, but biffed something and knocked the tracking out. Joel Prentice was 7th in class in the Honda ahead of Kevin McIvor. Class 1 winners were Steven Bogle and his big sister Jacqueline Bryson in the Mini although they thought they were out when a lead came off the coil early on, but that was their only problem, especially after the other Class 1 runner, Allan Little retired with a burst brake pipe in the Peugeot 106. ** Results: Albar Kames Trophy Rally: Class 1 ** Back to Rally Report Index |