Rally - Scots abroad

Missed the DMACK - cos of this!

There was no on-event reporting from the DMACK Stages Rally at the weekend as I was otherwise detained on business elsewhere (see photo for clue!) but looking at the entry list and results, it actually looked awfy like a round of the Scottish Rally Championship! I suppose the Jim Clark Reivers loss was the DMACK's gain as folk sought miles ahead of the Scottish at Dumfries in a couple of weeks time.

Anyway, the Irish Skoda crew of Desi Henry and Liam Moynihan won the five stage event in the Newcastleton region of Kielder forest by 38 seconds from Peter Taylor and Andrew Roughead (Ford Focus WRC). Top Scot was Kirsty Riddick in third place alongside Jonathan Greer in the Citroen, like Henry looking for practice miles ahead of the next BRC round in Dumfries.

Perhaps surprisingly, the top Scottish driver was Freddie Milne holding off the likes of Barry Groundwater, Rory Young, Scott McCombie and Shaun Sinclair. Considering Freddie's lack of seat time since his big crash on the Scottish a year ago now, that is pretty impressive. Mind you his big brother wasn't there, so there was no additional pressure or distraction!

Allan McDowall finished second in the Historic event while Keith Riddick could only manage third in class (we actually expect wins here!) and Jim Robertson had one of his best days in out in his troublesome Citroen with second in class. Maybe his French car prefers the English forests to the Scottish wids!

Of the 111 cars which left Carlisle on Saturday morning, 75 made it back to the finish and amongst the non-finishers were Euan Thorburn still struggling to get the Peugeot sorted out and Mark McCulloch was in the top ten till his brakes failed. Andy Kelly rolled 'Walter' and Caroline Carslaw retired the Fiesta with a broken balljoint. Sandy Fairbairn holed his Fiesta's sump and Alan McMorran retired his Avenger in SS3.

As for the Sloan boys, there was the most bitter of disappointment. They punctured the Nova's fuel tank in the second stage and when they stopped at the finish line, the car erupted into flames. Fortunately both Scott and David got out of the car without injury but the car was burned to the ground. However, there is a bit of good news, Malcolm Proudlock has already donated a Nova bodyshell to get the rebuilt underway and Heather Grisedale has set up a Crowdfunding page which is already generating financial support. Y'know what? There are some really nice folk out there.  

More information and pics on Scott's Facebook page here:

https://www.facebook.com/scott.sloan.79

And if you can help, here's the Crowdfunding link:

https://crowdfunding.justgiving.com/scott-sloan?utm_campaign=projectpage-share-owner&utm_content=scott-sloan&utm_medium=Yimbyprojectpage&utm_source=Facebook&utm_term=2aPPj5N9k

Final Results:

1, Desi Henry/Liam Moynihan (Skoda Fabia R5) 0:41:13,  

2, Peter Taylor/Andrew Roughead (Ford Focus WRC) 0:41:51, +0:00:38

3, Jonathan Greer/Kirsty Riddick (Citroen DS3 R5) 0:42:16, +0:01:03

4, Charles Payne/Carl Williamson (Ford Fiesta) 0:42:17, +0:01:04

5, Stephen Petch/Michael Wilkinson (Ford Fiesta R5+) 0:42:24, +0:01:11

6, Paul Benn/Richard Cooke (Ford Focus WR02) 0:42:28, +0:01:15

7, Fred Milne/Chris Williams (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 9) 0:42:29, +0:01:16

12, Barry Groundwater/Neil Shanks (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X) 0:43:16, +0:02:03

13, Rory Young/Allan Cathers (Ford Fiesta) 0:43:32, +0:02:19

14, Scott McCombie/Mark Fisher (Mitsubishi Evo 9) 0:43:37, +0:02:24

15, Shaun Sinclair/Stephen O'Hanlon (Subaru S9) 0:43:48, +0:02:35

16, Ross MacDonald/Stuart Loudon (Mitsubishi Evo VIII) 0:43:59, +0:02:46

18, Ian Baumgart/Mike Dickson (Subaru Impreza) 0:44:26, +0:03:13

19, Michael Binnie/Claire Mole (Mitsubishi EVO 5) 0:44:37, +0:03:24

20, Fraser Wilson/Craig Wallace (Mitsubishi Evo 9) 0:44:45, +0:03:32

23, Steven Clark/Laura Marshall (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 5) 0:45:12, +0:03:59

26, Brian Watson/Charlie Sayer-Payne (Mitsubishi Evo) 0:45:44, +0:04:31

28, Allan McDowall/Gavin Heseltine (Ford RS1800) 0:45:56, +0:04:43

42, Linzi Henderson/Tom Hynd (Subaru Impreza) 0:48:47, +0:07:34

46, Gordon Alexander/Anthony Litchfield (Rover ) 0:49:04, +0:07:51

54, Jim Robertson/Colin Maxwell (Citroen C2R2) 0:50:09, +0:08:56

63, Keith Riddick/Mairi Riddick (MG ZR) 0:51:42, +0:10:29