If you're doing nothing this weekend and want an excuse
to get out of the house, the Scottish Borders Hill Rally at St John's Town of
Dalry will provide the perfect excuse. For regular forest rally fans, the
spectacle is rather different. The 'cars' are bigger and look slower but
because of the amount of suspension travel they look a lot more dramatic. However
the real attraction is the noise. For sure there is a place for BDAs and
Millingtons, but nothing beats a big capacity V8 for delighting the aural proclivities.
Even the diesels sound good! Or is that a sign of creeping senility, or
fanatical sadness?
The 16 stage event gets underway at 10.00 Hrs on Saturday morning finishing
around 18.00 Hrs after two 'night' stages. The shorter Leg 2 starts at 10.00
Hrs on Sunday morning and will finish mid afternoon. The service area is also enlightening.
To heck with finesse, you should see some of the hammers the boys carry.
There is one spectator point accessible from the Forrest Estate
entrance road off the A713 Ayr/Castle Douglas. The side road left (or right if
coming from the north!) is just a couple of miles north of St John's Town of
Dalry. And no, I haven't got a post code, so use a map!
There are 50 entries (the maximum they can run on the venue) ranging from
a 1300cc Suzuki Jimny to a 6.5 lite Bowler Wildcat and if that doesn't tickle
your tootsies on a cold and frosty morning when it bellows, ground shakingly
past, then you're clinically dead.
