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The World According to Jaggy - Feb 8, 2010 The 2010 Season Preview Whilst gazing into my boiling cauldron (the wife was making soup, or maybe it was stuff to patch up the holes in the drive after the recent hard frosts – whatever, I’ll eat it/fill it if I’m told to) and I saw some visions. Whether it was the lack of crystal balls or lack of embrocation fluid, I don’t know, but there before me arising out of the bubbles and steam were visions of rally cars and trees. The symbol of the Halfcut Scottish Reality Championship led me to believe that I had the gift of ‘second sight’ and this year’s championship was about to be revealed exclusively to me, and I share this with you now in the spirit of goodwill and good sport ahead of the opening salvo, or should that be round, of this year’s national competition. The first vision was of a Subaru, erupting through the mist, and it looked mighty impressive. Jock Hamstring was at the wheel with his co-driver Kirsty Padlock. The Subaru now had four differently numbered Group N diffs, all fitted and all working, on the basis that surely to god one of them must be legal! As a mark of her professionalism and dedication to her craft, Kirsty had also been busy preparing for the new season too. Over the Winter months she had gone to evening classes at the Glasgow School of Art and Drama for a course on Stage Direction – this was to help her with her Tulip diagrams and Pace Notes. Speaking of top co-drivers, Louise Sutherland, who is regarded as a role model amongst aspiring lady co-drivers, has taken a second job to support her rallying. She thought she could use this notoriety as a role model to help her get some serious and well paid modelling work. Unfortunately, she was disillusioned very quickly with regard to this new and glamorous profession. Her first assignment was at Greggs - where she had to stand in the window modelling a roll and sausage, then a roll and egg and worked up to a double decker. She finally chucked it when asked to model buns in the oven. And here’s another thing you didn’t know, and which escaped the lurid headlines of the daily red tops. On the recent Galloway Hills Rally, Jock Hamstring beat ‘the bogey’ on two stages, but father John took him aside and told him to leave David alone and beat up someone his own age! And here’s another revelation. One of the visions I had showed Frank ‘Heavy Welly’ Kelly in action in the MkII. It was a snowy stage, and he went off three times, on the third stage of the third round of the series. Each time he ended up in the trees, but as he said to the MN reporter at the stage finish: “Bejasus, everyt’ing happens in trees.” Steve Bannister is expected to sign a sponsorship deal with Colgate this year, but it appears that the deal will require him to put big McLean’s stickers all over the car. Having moved over from Subaru to Mitsubishi, Willie Bonniwell is doing away with his sequential shift. Apparently he needs both hands to count beyond five, so has asked for a 5 manual spd shift rather than the 7 spd sequential shift – to stop him getting lost in transmission. Jim Carty has fitted a new lockable roll cage to the Subaru. It’s just big enough to hold his cheese rolls and Tunnock’s Caramel Wafers, to keep them safe from Big Fraze! Andy Horne was knackered even before the start of the first rally of the year. It’s a while since he has done any paperwork so after filling in the Entry Form, it said ‘Tear along dotted line’, and he was subsequently spotted legging it big style down the middle of the main road outside the hotel. Shaun Sinclair got a bit of practice in ahead of this year’s series when he went to Baghdad scouting for work for his plant hire business. After spending his days in business suit and driving serenely around the local business district, he went driving at night in his race suit down ‘shotgun alley’ and shouting out the window, “I love George Bush, he’s a wonderful ...” that was about as far as he got before the gunfire started. So expect him to be quick off the mark on the forthcoming Snowperson Rally. One of rallying’s great all-time innovators, Ken Wood, is getting carried away with this Ebay thing, and obviously hasn’t quite grasped the intricacies of the internet. He bought a set of Minilites for his Dolomite Sprint, but Peter thinks he’s losing it. When he saw what Kenny had bought, he said: “I thought you were trying to reduce the unsprung weight of the car, so what are you going to do with four small torches!” Sharing a twin room is something that Mike Faulkner and Peter Foy won’t be doing this year. Apparently when Mike needed a ‘number 2’ during the night in the B&B before the Merrick, he reached under the bed for the potty and got Peter’s helmet instead. Neither noticed till the first stage when Peter felt something sliding down his neck – and once the car really warmed up in the white hot heat of competition, they both realised something was afoot. OK, maybe it wasn’t as big as that, but it was powerfully pungent! There will be a new star in the stages this year too, Jimmy Troon. He’s a cousin of Jimmy Girvan and lives just up the road from him. Rallying is getting expensive, so Mark McCulloch got himself a second job to pay for his new car. He is now the Head Designer at a local foundry. He now works in the bronze statue casting department where his new boss said: “I gave him the job of Head Designer because he was rubbish at designing legs and feet, not very good at hands and arms, but he’s better than the others at designing heads.” Causing confusion throughout the year at Signing-On, the O’Donnell twins have been asked by the SRC organisers to carry their passports as rally officials are having trouble telling them apart. One of them is tall, thin, young and has dark hair, and despite the fact that other one doesn’t have any of those, there is still a strong family resemblance. The Rintoul twins will have no such problem, they are only related by test tube. Another co-driver being asked to carry his passport is Eildon Hall. Apparently he is listed in the EventScotland guide book as a listed building in the country house section. Still on co-drivers, Lucky Sturrock is tearing his hair out. Despite offering at least 9 different varieties of Route Notes he has received yet another request from a threatened minority under the terms of the Equal Opportunities Act. John Morrison, Malcolm Buchanan, Callum MacKenzie, Alasdair Graham and Mickey McMoose have all requested Route Notes in Gaelic! And never one to do anything first, F1’s ex favourite Number 2, David Chinhard thought he’d copy Kimi Raikonen who has switched to the WRC, but he misheard Kimi, and joined the Women’s Rural Committee instead – and he’s now learning to knit balaclavas and baby clothes. Service crews will be in the news too, particularly ‘Fred’ Grant. In a desperate bid to stop smoking Fred bought a supply of nicotine patches, but he gave up after only a day. Apparently he was a danger to himself and others in the garage, bumping into things and scorching people with the welding torch – until someone told him he was supposed to stick them on his arm. Taking a wider look at what lies ahead this year, those people who govern the sport have come up with some new initiatives – well, they’ve got to do something to justify their wages and expenses, but instead of doing something constructive for the sport they have taken a moral stand. Under the auspices of the FIA, the World Rally Championship is supporting the ’Make Roads Safe’ campaign and is calling for a ‘Decade of Action for Road Safety’ starting this year. In March the UN General Assembly will also be introducing a Decade of Action for Road Safety. With all this high-falutin’ nonsense going on in furrin parts, our dearly beloved and very own MSA thought they too would jump on the moralistic bandwagon and do something ‘good’ but different to the FIA. They have therefore chosen to support the ‘Don’t drink and drive‘ campaign in the UK, but they appear to have grasped the wrong end of the stick, or indeed, the wrong end of the bottle. They have banned all drinking during rallies. This is bad news for lovers of Red Bull, Vodka Kick, Monster Energy and caffeine enriched Buckfast, but Irn Bru has escaped the ban because the English think Irn Bru has to be chewed not drunk. Highland Spring is also safe as the MSA thinks this is a Scottish car suspension part and Orangina is safe as the MSA thinks this is a suntanned supermodel. The real winners are the mixed crews, as there is no ban on navigators drinking, so service areas will have to be curtained off when such crews are exchanging body fluids when drivers need ‘refreshments’. And speaking of the MSA, our leaders have banned the use of the words ‘Ditch Hooker’ in all rally publicity material. They are afraid that the un-informed will not realise this is someone who uses forest drainage channels to lever themselves round a corner, and instead think it is a very durty big wumman who is working the crowds in the forest. Apparently some of the ‘red light ladies of the night’ were spotted trying to earn a bit extra during the day at Rally Wales, but have since decided to give it a miss as there were no crowds to work, hence the belated ban on the term. On the ball again, eh? And finally, you’ve got to hand it to The Bears, those beloved overfed and furry creatures which inhabit the nether regions of Lanarkshire. They were right on the pedal when SRC Press Officer Wiley Robin issued a press release ahead of this year’s championship which included the phrase, ‘Championship organisers have unveiled a raft of awards and incentives for the forthcoming season totalling more than £15,000’. Well, you should have seen the stoor as the Bears scrambled to get in touch ahead of everyone else, and Wiley has now been fending off requests to borrow the ‘championship raft’ for the annual Crossford Raft Race which takes place on the River Clyde in July every year. Maybe this year they will have a chance of finishing the race whilst still afloat instead of paddling down the falls Fred Flintstone style. By the way, the Bears have also decided to ban the use of rev counters on the McRae Rally in October. Apparently some members of the club contesting the rally last year were using them to score the number of ministers they knocked off their bikes driving between the stages! And d’you know something, every word of the above is true! * * * * * |