Rally - Oops!

Need to start with an apology this morning. Missed out Robert Thomson last night who finished the day in 26^th place in his Lancer. He was one of the last of our lot home because he was having trouble with his clutch and struggled on the final road section. The team noticed a wee oil leak before the start in the morning but it wasn’t serious. It was just seepage from the rocker cover. Trouble was it was dripping down the gearbox and into the clutch so as the day progressed, the clutch started to slip more badly.

When I left them last night, there was a brand new clutch in its cardboard box ready for the overnight installation.

My excuse for missing them out was that I was sitting in the car in a dark car park writing up this daily drivel. I could have gone to the superbly equipped Media Centre which is housed in the canteen and office complex of the nearby Toyota plant but it’s miles away (slight exaggeration) across the car park, across the huge service park, through a nature trail and on to the Toyota site. If you’ve never been to an WRC event then you can’t appreciate the scale of this mammoth operation. Think Formula 1 without the grid girls and more cars. And I was an already knackered wee boy chasing folk around the service area.

I also missed out a lovely wee story from Iain Wilson. Keith (Riddick) had been telling him to take it easy through Sweet Lamb earlier in the day and not to tackle the jumps too hard so early on the rally: “I heard him but I wasnae listening,” said Iain, “and maybe I did take the jumps wee bit too hard, just playing to the crowds, but I’ve been playing this stage on the DIRT video game for ages!” So who needs Notes, eh?