Saturday, 20 May 2017

Rally - Drookit day oot



Jock Armstrong won the National B, RSAC Scottish Rally, but he may not have taken top ARR Craib Scottish Championship points because Euan Thorburn’s times will have to be taken into account. Euan was contesting the full international 10 stages so only his SS3 to SS8 times will count. Not ideal but as a means of encouraging folk to have a crack at the BRC competitors the idea has its merits.

Shaun Sinclair got second overall ahead of Mike Faulkner unable to make up the 30 second deficit he incurred on the first stage: “I opted for hard tyres on the first one,” said Mike, “wrong choice. The first bend on the first stage was wet and the cold tyres just locked up, no grip and we were off.”

Rory Young grabbed fourth when Mark McCulloch had his second puncture of the day on the second run through Twiglees and Freddie Mine rounded off the top six delighted with his stages times taking time out of some of the BRC front runners.

Michael Binnie scored the best result of his career so far in 7th ahead of Scott McCombie who got 8th when Iain Wilson parked up mid stage 7. Simon Hay and Dougal Brown rounded off the top ten with Dougal taking top 2WD finish, but it was close: “The car wouldn’t start at the last stage,” said Dougal, “and we took all the plugs out and cleaned them, then noticed it was losing water too. So we topped it up and went for it - and then had to top it up again on the road section into the finish!”

Angus Lawrie was lucky to take the 1600 class win and even luckier to finish when he lost a rear wheel on the final stage. Scott MacBeth lost out when his Citroen struck a rock, bent the bottom arm and the steering.

Perhaps veteran Sandy Milne summed it up best when he crossed the finish line: "What happened to the Scottish? In my day it was dust. It was more like the Safari Rally out there today!"

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