Rally - Faulkner leads from Head

Mike Fsaulkner leads the Merrick, Rally after two stages, by 8 seconds from Robbie Head, but Mike has been in  the wars.

“We went into a 7Left,” said Mike, “it was really greasy, muddy and narrow and just slid wide and fell off. We backed out OK and thnere doesn’t seem to be any damage.”

Arch rival Euan Thorburn had worse probems: “The turbo pipe came off in the first stage and we lost over one and a half minutes, but we were fastest in the second stage, so we’ll just keep going as hard as we can.”

Robbie Head said: “We caught Euan in the first stage, but he pulled over quickly and let us through, but at least Mike’s not too far ahead so maybe we can fight a bit harder this weekend.”

Faulkner leads on 13m 15s from Thorburn on 13m 23s, with Jonny Greer third (13m 25s), Wayne Sisson fourth (13m 39s).

Chris Collie is fifth (13m 39s), John McClory (13m 56s) and Steve Bannister is up there too on 14m 04s. But Steve gave me a bit of news, apparently the Americans have downgraded their recent hurricane – to a Scottish summer! Well, I thought it was funny.

And here’s another bit of hot gossip, although all participants will deny it. Louise Sutherland sitting beside Banner is sending text messages back to Mike Faulkner whom she co-drove for on Speyside: “I’m his unofficial weather crew” she joked.