With 4 stages out of 6 gone in today’s Snowman Rally, David Bogie still leads the Snowman Rally from Quintin Milne with Mike Faulkner in third place but the snow is now falling steadily as the survivors of a particularly tough, slippery and unpredictable event head south again.
Early times show:
David Bogie 27m 57s
Quintin Milne 28m 45s
Mike Faulkner 28m 52s
Rory Young 29m 41s
Peter Taylor 29m 47s
Dougal Brown29m 58s
John McClory 30m 02s
Steven Ronaldson 30m 02s
Barry Groundwater 30m 19s
Keith Robathan 30m 19s
and Alasdair S Graham is 14th overall in a Nova at present!
Euan Thorburn continues to struggle. The cause of his time loss in the first stage this morning was an overheating clutch – caused he reckoned by the very tight chicanes and his unfamiliarity with the new Focus. On the other hand, Peter Taylor has go to grips with his Focus and is resiting the urge to push for a podium position – so far!
But the drive of the rally so far is down to Quintin Milne second time out in his Mitsubishi but he admitted to “being a passenger a couple of times in that last stage in the snow” commenting on the conditions., Apparently there was 4 inches of snow for the first 8 miles of the stage, then it got deeper for the last section!
Mike Faulkner reckoned “this was a snow tyres stage – but hindsight is wonderful thing, isn’t it?” he said with a grin.
David Bogie had a misfire at the en d of that last stage and had to switch off the anti-lag in case the lean mixture burnt the pistons and is just hoping there is no lasting damage as he heads towards the final two stages.
John McClory was off in SS2 and had to reverse out ... Craig McMiken broke a driveshaft in SS2 and had to do SS3 as well ... Dougal Brown got a rear puncture towards the end of SS4 which was tricky as the snow was starting to polish by that time ... John Morrison spun in SS4 and struggled to get it turned around on the ice ... Chris Collie’s Subaru is on its roof in there and Calum MacKenzie went straight on and got stuck at an easy bend, but just fell victim to the conditions ... Fraser MacNicol was off in there too but last seen struggling to get back on the road ... Bruce McCombie’s wipers failed and he has rigged up a manually operated system consisting of a pull-rope attached to the wiper arm and leading through the window for him to pull while driving while the other side is controlled by an elasticated bungy which pulls the wiper arm back! Ingenious ... Alistair Inglis was going well but slid off and damaged the front o/s corner of the Lancer and Allan MacKay was off twice – the second time for good.
As for the winner? It’s anyone’s game now. Conditions will play their part too.
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