Road - Weekend ahead

If you’re not going to Le Mans this weekend, but are in urgent need of a fume fix there’s plenty of domestic choice this weekend. Apart from the Scottish Tarmac Championship Rally at Crail airfield in north east Fife, there is the two-day Hillclimb at Doune this weekend. It’s not a rally, but trees line some parts of the track so they will soothe the withdrawal symptoms somewhat ahead of the Scottish Rally later this month at Dumfries.

This will be round 7 of the British Hillclimb Championship so all the heavyweights will be up from the south to do battle with what’s known as ‘the King of Hills.’ If you’ve never been, it’s worth a look, and a listen, and it’s just a couple of miles west of Doune, near Stirling.

If you want to make a weekend of it, Knockhill Circuit near Dunfermline will be hosting the Scottish Motor Show this weekend as well. It’s 9 years since the Show was last held at the SECC in Glasgow and it’s just a pity that the SMTA couldn’t sustain the show at the covered venue.

On the other hand Knockhill has made a decent stab at accommodating the event and although there is no roof, there is a track alongside, and in some ways this has revived what was previously a very static event.

Amongst the manufacturers officially represented at the show will be Seat, Ford, Abarth, Land Rover, Honda, Jeep, and Great Wall while Peugeot has chosen Scotland to debut its brand new 208. A number of dealers will have their own displays of Mercedes, Morgan, Ginetta, Alfa, Fiat, Smart, Kia, Subaru, Infiniti and Ssangyong vehicles.

On-track action will include a ‘moving motor show’ of exotica such as McLaren, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, Bentley, Porsche and Radical.

So if the thought of screaming weans and stacked shelves in Tesco is too much to bear, at least there are some options for an escape this weekend.

The Scottish Motor Show runs from 9.15 am until 5 pm both Saturday 16th and Sunday 17th. Family tickets are £38 (2 adults and 2 concessions), Adult tickets £15, concessions £8 and under 12's free of charge – where’s my lollipop and mittens?

Fingers crossed for better weather.