Saturday 31 March 2012

Rally - Hunter Wins - Just!


Peter Hunter in the Mitsubishi Lancer EVO9 won the 2012 Chsarterhall Stages Rally, but only just. He went into the final stage with a 14 second lead over Dale Robertson. “I thought I’d blown it,” said Peter, “I spent all day trying to avoid punctures and, bugger it, I felt a tyre go down just after the start. We did most of that stage with the puncture. I was sure Dale would have got me.”

He didn’t, the winner’s margin was 6 seconds after six stages.

Even so, Dale Robertson was happy with second place but there was a tie for third between Dom Buckley and Michael Glendinning, with Buckley getting the place courtesy of a faster stage time on the first stage of the day.

Billy McClelland sorted out his throttle trouble and scored fifth ahead of Doug Brydon, but Chris Collie was denied a finish when the centre diff broke in the Lancer.

Top two wheel drive runner was Michael Horne in seventh place but Martin Elsdon retired with broken front steering. Des Campbell was top FWD car in 13th placed with the wee Peugeot 206 just 7 seconds in front of Garry Pearson with the Micra. But Des was lucky: “I went into the last stage with half a minute lead and thought I would just ca’canny, but I had a rush of blood to the head, hit a marker tyre and nearly got stuck.”

Top Junior 1000 driver was Alexander Vassallo, the son of1994 Charterhall Stages winner Peter Vassallo who was here watching his lad on his second rally. Harry Marchbank was second with 8 of the ten Juniors finishing.

1 Peter Hunter, 39m 27s
2 Dale Robertson, 39m 33s
3 Dom Buckley, 39m 39s
4 Michael Glendinning, 39m 39s
5 Billy McClelland, 40m 11s
6 Doug Brydon, 40m 24s
7 Michael Horne, 41m 10s
8 Ivor Clark, 41m 43s
9 Lee Hastings, 41m 55s
10 Stuart Baillie, 42m 02s

No comments:

Post a Comment