Rally - Graduation Day

A rather unique gathering is taking place at Kames on Sunday (8th Dec) for the Ecosse Junior 1000 rally teams. This year’s championship series was curtailed rather abruptly when the teams from the north travelled south to the final round at Anglesey in Wales for the two-day Pentraeth Glyn Memorial Junior Stages on the 23rd and 24th November.

Sadly Storm Bert was a most unwelcome visitor to the sea-side venue prompting the organisers to cancel the event on safety grounds on Friday evening, so it was a matter of everyone turning around and heading for home!

With that in mind the championship organisers have arranged a rather special, but very informal, get-together at Kames on Sunday starting from 11.00am although the actual championship prizegiving and awards ceremony will still take place in Glasgow on the first of February 2025.

Anyway, congratulations to everyone in the class of ’24 and especially the winners and new champions, Rian Walker and Stuart McBride. Charlie Mathewson and Ian Bass are runners-up with Ollie Forrester and George Myatt in third place and Lewis Davidson is the new Novice Champion.

For some it will be a sad day as they leave the cosseting arms of junior rallying (and Rhona’s tablet) to hopefully take up senior rallying. A big step, but exciting for those who are able to do so. And therein lies the problem. It all depends on what Santa brings on the back of the sleigh – will it be a Rally1, R5, Subaru or Ford, Vauxhall or MINI?

Thankfully there is now a ‘reasonably priced’ first step up in the shape of the Autoshop.co.uk MG3 Challenge. In the absence of any other ‘budget’ one-make championships, Niall Cowan came up with a brainwave. A most unusual event you might think, Niall having a brainwave that is, but this was one of his better ones and he topped that with getting Mark McCulloch on board to help out with cars, prep and advice. The experience and knowledge that everyone involved brings to the concept is quite simply incalculable.

Niall realised the potential of the MG3 when he built and rallied one himself and with a plentiful supply of used MG3s around, it formed the basis of an idea. Here was a basic good handling car with the proven ‘K’ series 1400cc engine which could be turned into a competitive stage car at what is a most reasonable cost - by current rallying terms!

There is now a championship for these cars and full details can be found here:

https://www.mg3rally.co.uk/

This has been one of the most successful Junior 1000 seasons so far since the category for 14 to 17 years olds to go rallying was created by the late David ‘Digby’ Barlow some 12 years ago now. A real credit to the man’s vision, determination and extraordinary effort

As an outsider looking in, this championship series has been transformational to so many young lives. We have seen shy youngsters become confident adults, and it’s not just about learning to drive and compete in rallies. The youngsters have learned so many additional different life skills that they have gained a degree of maturity which would put many of their elders in this sport to shame and will give them a good grounding for whatever life throws at them in the future.

So if anyone, or their children, fancies finding out what this is all about, here’s the ideal opperchancity - Kames on Sunday.

Gaun yersels lads and lasses.

Oh, and by the way, the red Transit will be in attendance, and it will have some books on board if anyone is looking for Christmas presents – but I don’t do gift wrapping!

https://fife-motor-sports-agency.square.site/