Rally - Catch up

Despite the grim weather predictions yesterday, the re-start at Craignure this morning was dry and fairly bright so time was spent in catching up with some of the crews before they headed off into the cauldron of competition once again.

Let’s start with the good news. Both Tommy Graham and Mike Bailey are OK after their accident on SS2 last night, although the same can’t be said for their Mitsubishi. Both lads were taken to hospital for a precautionary check-up before being released into the tender mercies of the nearest hostelry.

Amongst those being re-scrutineered before being allowed to re-start under Rally 2 regulations was Nick Rintoul (87) whose Skoda Fabia featured a nice set of battle scars down the co-driver’s side: “We caught a car at Calgary Steps on the last stage last night,” said Nick, “when the rear end went light and stepped out as we approached a narrow bridge and we just slid off into a ditch.”

David Holland (58), who should know better, went off on the fourth corner in the first stage last night: “We hadn’t even got to the place where the stage normally starts and the car went sideways, and fell in a ditch.” And it was on the driver’s side. John Paterson (61) was another destined for Rally 2 when a driveshaft broke on the Nova: “It had broken at the gearbox so there was no chance of fixing it there and we had to get rescued and fixed it overnight.” Fergus Barlow (22) was back for more in the wee Fiesta: “It was trophies or trees last night, and we got the trees,” said an upbeat Barlow, “it’s all about pushing and seeing how fast we can go. It was dry set-up on the car and it was wet and just went too hard into a corner.”

Steven Alexander (152) fixed his broken throttle cable and was back for more: “Three miles into the last stage, the nipple came off the cable and that was it, we were stranded.” Alistair Inglis broke a driveshaft in the Lotus Exige last night but appears to have fixed it ahead of Rally 2.