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.
