Saturday 2 November 2013

Rally - Inglis leads

Gawd, it's cauld. It's also damp, dreich and grey at Crail this morning. The early morning sunshine has given way to a North Sea dampness that eats away at every layer of clothing you can pull on. There's no polar bears or yetis here either, it's too damn cauld.

That means it's very greasy out there. "It's like ice," said Bruce Edwards, but after 2 of the day's six stages,
Alistair Inglis in the Lancer has taken a 15 second lead from Stuart Baillie in his Impreza.

But Keith Robathan is out. First time out in the original rebuilt white MkII (after his Jim Clark crash in the second car) he's retired after 6 miles. "We think it's the water pump," said Keith,  "a brand new engine and it was all going fine till I saw the temperature going up as we slowed for the finish, so switched off." What a shame.

The Russell boys in the Nova are having a tough time. Thegearbox blew a hole in the casing on the first stage and the boys set to at service to change the 'box. They had 45 minutes before being out of time for the start of SS2 and I've just seen them driving past the Transit 'mobile press office' now. But it wasn't just them under and around the car, Dangerous Des and Gareth appeared on the scene with a team and you couldn't see the wee car for bodies and flying spanners. Magic.

That's what rallying's all about - just one problem. Mrs Russell will have to feed them burgers and tea!  That'll be a lot dearer than a replacement gearbox.

Leaderboard after 2 (of 6) stages:
1, A Inglis, 24m 00s
2, S Baillie, 24m 15s
3, T Morris, 24m 36s
4, J Paterson, 24m 49s
5, B Grant, 25m 00s
6, B Edwards, 25m 09s
7, R Marshall, 25m 16s
8, S Will, 25m 25s
9, L Hastings, 25m 34s
10, J Rintoul, 25m 45s

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