Rally - Scottish Tomorrow

A typical June day in Scotland

There was a good turn-out at the rally shakedown in Ae today ahead of tomorrow’s Scottish Rally at Dumfries, and despite all the best laid plans and preparations there were some last minute dramas.

Euan Thorburn only got his Focus back from Buckley’s last night: “After every rally we drain all the oil and change it,” explained his Dad, Alistair, “and after the Reivers we found some iron filings in the stuff we drained out of the gearbox. There was damage to 6^th and 2^nd gears so they had to be changed otherwise the ‘box was fine.”

Then after a couple of runs this morning, Euan came into the service area with a frown: “The accelerator jammed open in there, not all the time, but intermittently.” Still, it’s better to find out these niggles today rather than tomorrow.

Euan and Alisatir in discussion

Another in trouble was Alick Kerr looking forward to his first run out since the 2010 McRae Stages: “I’d like to do a couple of events this year,” said Alick, “and maybe look at a full championship season next year.”

Using the same Group N Subaru, but with a 34 mm restrictor fitted now, he was soon back in the groove, but all too soon back up on the jacks: “We’ve found a crack in the gearbox casing and oil is seeping out.”

So that’ll be another over-nighter then.

And despite the weather predictions of rain clearing northwards, nobody told the rain Gods. Ae is a pretty dreich place when it’s wet, so it was really quite dismal this morning with one or two really heavy plumps of rain interspersing the drizzle.

Back to school trouble for Kerr

David Bogie had some guests to take around during the shakedown, one of whom had paid a lot of money at a charity night to sit beside the three times Scottish Champion, and was looking ahead to tomorrow. He was surprised at being given the Number 1 seed ahead of last year’s winner Jock Armstrong, but then reckoned: “Jock should have the number 1 place but I’m not going to complain, “ the Scottish is renowned for dusty stages and I don’t want to get caught in Jock’s dust!”

I think he was joking.

Quintin Milne was there too and had a three runs with Barry Clark riding shotgun: "I'm still driving the Lancer like a MkII," said Quintin, "so Barry is trying to tidy me up and take neater lines." That'll be a difficult task for Barry, he's a helluve adriver, but he's no magician!

Drove the Fiat Panda down to Ae, but fortunately these boys didn't catch me - their camera ain't quick enough.