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Rally Report - Monday 12 July 2010 D & W Brown Builders (Mull) Stages, Saturday,3 July Brucie’s Twice is Right Bruce Edwards and Jim Smith scored their second win of the season on the D & W Brown Builders (Mull) Stages Rally at Crail, but the man of the match was Stevie Hogg. With Kirsty McDonald alongside, Hogg set a string of fastest times over the first five of the eight stages. Then disaster struck. Having built up a lead of 57 seconds after five stages, Hogg emerged from Stage 6 in third place having dropped nearly 2 minutes in six miles. It was soon clear why. The Subaru had two punctures. He was now third behind Edwards/Smith and Bob Grant and Peter Carstairs. Game on. With Bob Grant having a good run for change, Edwards in the ‘Flying Frisbee’ couldn’t relax either and they both went at it in Stage 7. They both tied on 7m 51s. Hogg was 10 seconds quicker. Hogg was fastest again on the final one from Grant, but Edwards had done enough to hang on to the win while Hogg displaced Grant for the runner-up place by just 3 seconds. In fourth place and scoring the best result of his career was Stuart Baillie in his “risen from the ashes Subaru” (the engine went on fire three events ago!) from John Rintoul who was only half a minute behind at the finish. And if it hadn’t been for a puncture on the second test, costing him over a minute and a half, Rintoul might have been mixing it with the top three. As it was, he pulled back over a minute to take fifth behind a jubilant Baillie. In fifth place was the top two wheel drive Escort of Michael Glendinning. Ricky Wheeler had been the fastest Escort driver till the third stage when he got a maximum and dropped out of the top ten leaving Glendinning to fend off the fast improving Barry Renwick in his ‘new’ Escort. Third two wheel drive finisher was Alan Gardiner in his MkI behind the two MkIIs but as ever in these events, there was a ‘tiddler’ in the ranks. This time it was the Vauxhall Tigra of Chris Platt who was in the top ten after a scintillating drive round the wide open spaces of Crail. Rounding off the top ten was John Baird and he might well have been higher had it not been for a one minute time penalty. Hankook title contender and early series leader Ross Fernie rolled out of contention on the fourth stage when he rode a front wheel over a tyre marker which tipped the Escort Cosworth over, and former champion Tommy Morris was re-united with his Metro following an engine rebuild, but suffered transmission problems all day and later withdrew before any real damage was done. Nigel Atkinson was another non-finisher in his Metro with gearbox problems and Jimmy Christie withdrew his Lancer when it started to get a touch too hot under the bonnet. Sharing the lead in the Hankook Scottish Tarmac title chase prior to this event were Ross Fernie and Alan Brodie but both failed to finish. Even so Edwards’ win has only moved him up to third place. David Hope now leads on 77 points from Gareth White (76) while Edwards has 70. Both Fernie and Broide are still there though, on 66 points, so ‘it’s still all to play for’ as the saying goes! The Classes Husband and wife team, Garry and Tracey Louise Muir won Class 1 in their Citroen AX fairly comfortably from the Halley brothers in their Escort MkII and Alan Dunn in his Peugeot 106. Things might have been different had Bruce Hay not damaged the Nova in the fifth test, but overall, the most impressive performance came from young Heather MacCrone in 7th place. She got quicker and quicker on each and every run, and that surely is what rallying is all about. Ralph Barclay took Class 2 in his MkII from Will Harley’s Peugeot 205 and the similar car of Michael Davidson but Andrew Fry had to retire the MG with a gearbox problem and Alex Brown had transmission problems - again. Chris Platt took Class 3 from the Citroen C2 of Gareth White. Normally a top ten runner himself, White was puzzled by a lack of power and reckons a rebuild is needed. Stuart McQueen gave the Puma an airing and was rewarded with third although Peter Taylor missed out on the battle when the Fiesta’s brakes failed. Alan Brodie lost even more when he retired the MkII because he was sharing the championship lead with Ross Fernie till this point. Bruce Edwards took Class 4 from Glendinning and Bruce Oag, while Steven Hogg got the Class 5 win from Grant and Baillie. Results: **** |