Rally - Sir LancerLot

Greg McKnight scored his first win of the season on yesterday's Memorial Garden Stages Rally at the RM Condor military base near Arbroath.

Using the event as a test session for next weekend's Speyside Stages, Greg explained: "I've been having problems with my rear brakes on this car since I got it, so I've taken the four-pot brake callipers off the rear and fitted standard two-pots to see if I can cure it." It must have worked. Four fastest stage times followed with one equal fastest and a final second fastest time secured the victory.

Ian Paterson finished second having dropped over half a minute to the leader on the first two stages when the power steering failed, and top seed Nigel Feeney didn't get off to the best of starts either: "I used intermediates on this event last year, but they are not the tyres for today!"

Feeney then started coming under pressure from Gordon Morrison as well, but on the fifth stage, the Mitsubishi pulled a driveshaft out. Morrison too had earlier got off to a slowish start too, when he spun his Subaru twice on the opening stage, but redeemed himself with fastest time on the final stage to claim the final podium position.

Ian Forgan finished fourth after a front wheel puncture on the final stage with Keith Robathan fifth and top two wheel drive runner. But like Ingliston, Keith had been delayed catching cars and not getting past. This had nothing to do with speed, but huge clouds of dust on the roads near the perimeter of the MoD site were being kicked up by the cars in the dry conditions, that is until the hail shower in the afternoon!

Ross Cree rounded off the top six in his Escort Mk2, but was lucky to complete the first two stages: "The rear tyres were worn right through to the wire," said Cree, "no wonder I had no grip."

At the finish, Greg expressed himself quite satisfied with his second ever rally win: "The brakes were fine, so hopefully I've solved the problem." We'll find out next week, can't wait, eh?

 

As ever, the Juniors were highly entertaining. Jude MacDonald and Ewan Tindall had a furious day long scrap with Jude winning out by just 3 seconds at the finish. Johnnnie MacKay survived a huge tank-slapper in the third test to take third place in hi Suzuki Alto from Lewis Haining who left his Toyota's front bumper stuck on a tyre marker in the same stage.

( There will be a short report and photo in Wednesday's 'Motorsport News' followed shortly afterwards by a more comprehensive report on events and proceedings in the on-line mag ) 

Top Ten:
1, Greg McKnight/David Crosbie (Mitsubishi Evo 9) 67m 39s
2, Ian Paterson/Heather Grisedale (Subaru Impreza) 68:26
3, Gordon Morrison/Derek Keir (Subaru Impreza N11) 68:46
4, Ian Forgan/Christopher Lees (Subaru Impreza) 71:08
5, Keith Robathan/Peter Carstairs (Ford Escort Mk2) 72:54
6, Ross Cree/Billy Gower (Ford Escort Mk2) 74:42
7, Kevin Stout/Cameron Stout (Prodrive Impreza) 75:57
8, Richard Barnard/Paul Gribben (BMW Compact) 76:11
9, Graeme Sherry/Richard Wardle (Citroen C2) 82:29
10, Scott MacBeth/Keir Beaton (Citroen C2 R2 Max) 83:14
Juniors Top 6:
1, Jude MacDonald/Steven Brown (Skoda Citigo) 78:52
2, Ewan Tindall/Paul Hudson (Citroen C1) 78:55
3, Johnnie MacKay/Gordon Reid (Suzuki Alto) 81:15
4, Lewis Haining/George Myatt (Toyota Aygo) 81:22
5, Finlay Retson/Andrew Falconer (Nissan Micra) 81:33
6, Andrew Blackwood/Gordon Winning (Citroen C1) 84:55