Saturday 21 March 2015

Rally - Stage trouble

Welcome to the future of British forest rallying? The second stage on today's Border Counties Rally was stopped on safety grounds, the decision taken by the Stage Commander and Clerk of the Course after reports by a mid-stage radio crew that there were quad bikers in the forest. With no idea where they were going, the decision was reluctantly taken to stop the stage. None of the early runners managed to complete the full stage before the yellow flags came out.

The Safety Delegate fully supported this decision commenting: "This is a great shame. The spectators were great in the two stages we drove through this morning, standing well back. We stopped at one group and asked them to move further back so they were out of the sight-line of the competing crews and when we explained that, they were happy to step back."

It was a point echoed by David Bogie: "At first I wondered where all the spectators were, then I noticed they were all standing well back or high up. It seems they're getting the message but from what I've heard it wasn't really 'spectators' who caused the problem."

So with only one stage run this morning, David Bogie has a 10 second lead over Jock Armstrong, but Jock has a misfire at low revs and the team were hard at work under the bonnet at first service.
Stephen Petch is in third place 13, seconds behind Bogie with Peter Taylor fourth ahead of Andrew Gallacher and Mike Faulkner.

Speaking of Faulkner, he was lucky to be here at all. A rear strut broke yesterday at the Test Day and ptiched the Lancer into a roll off the road. The car was trailered to Arnside Motorsport where Wayne and the team set to, fitting new front wings, bonnet, lights and radiators, returning to Jedburgh at 3.00 am this morning.

It would appear that Quintin Milne is out with turbo failure as is Scott McCombie.

Fingers crossed, there are now 3 stages in the Tweed Valley, before the final stage back in Kielder later this afternoon.

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