Rally - Drivel Alert

Drivel alert …. Sorry, that should read Drive Alert, or maybe not, perhaps the Intro title is right enough. However the full title is ‘Drive with Hollie McRae’ and she has a new Podcast live on ‘Drive’ as of this morning. Having already interviewed some of the great and the godly she has turned her attention to the shy and introverted, or maybe she was just stuck for someone to fill a gap in her diary. And what a diary she has these days. It keeps her very busy, not just with the British Rally Championship media coverage but with many other ‘projects’ keeping her constantly on the go.

Anyway the podcast interview took place in her new Colin McRae Tribute Room where she has created her own wee very professional studio but stepping into that building gave me a full set of the heebie jeebies. It was Colin’s office back in the day. Let’s just say the whole experience was rather emotional. Goodness knows what you will make of the chat but it was rather different from my past where it was me who asked the questions – not answered them. Thanks Hollie, I think!

If you’ve got nothing better to do, you might want to drop in:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5wa7WoEPl66fZuh1PSkKsN?si=y887YTFDQiqrU6gyvtMylw

 

Road - And another thing

The previous post generated quite a bit of interest and some feedback but we can’t blame the motor manufacturers for all the ills of electric vehicles. It has to be remembered that it wasn’t the automotive industry who decided electric vehicles were the way forward it was the politicians and national governments around the world who decreed that electricity was the saviour of transport and man/womankind. They also stated at the time that electricity would be cheaper - including our domestic bills.

It didn’t and hasn’t happened.

Things might have been different and more progress made if the politicians had incentivised the automotive industry to come up with alternative power units rather than dictating that they must cease present ICE technology and adopt electrical power units instead.

Of course some of the more enterprising companies are currently investigating alternative power sources but hardly with the same impetus and government support that is behind the push for electricity. I have no idea how many politicians have any actual inside knowledge of the automotive industry nor do we know who they consult to advise them on such matters, but they most certainly give the impression that Westminster is a closed shop to any outside thinking or influence.

Instead we get all these expostulations about clean and cheap power while ignoring the downsides. The simple thinkers thought an electric motor in place of an ICE unit would be less polluting, cheaper to run and able to be charged up at home. That may be fine for users who potter about city centres but not for other motorists. These actions further suggest that little thought was given to where the exotic materials for batteries would be sourced nor how they would be produced.  The result is heavier vehicles with reduced payload which require stronger suspension and beefier brakes with the resultant detrimental impact on road surfaces creating more pot holes. And who knows, we might require new more costly construction methods of roadbuilding to withstand this increase in wear and tear.

And then there is the small matter of running costs. Who would for a moment think that ‘fuel’ tax on electric vehicles would not be increased as petrol and diesel revenues fall? The British motorist is just another tax generator.

However the motor industry must share some of the blame. They should have been lobbying their MPs and various governments long before we got to this stage. There was too much complacency in the belief that world trade was far too reliant on transport for anyone to interfere.

But I had to laugh this morning. Ineos, Mr Ratcliffe’s company which manufactures the Grenadier 4x4 SUV, has published a letter addressed to European politicians in which they call for action from the EU with regard to Mr Trump’s tariffs. They have accused the EU of not negotiating with the US before now.

Lynn Calder, CEO of INEOS Automotive commented: “This is what happens when politicians sit on their hands. As a growing EU-based automobile brand, we are vulnerable to tariffs, and we need our politicians to support our business, our jobs and our economies. We need urgent and direct political intervention on tariffs.”

This is the same company that declared six years ago, they would build its SUV at a new factory in Wales employing 200 people initially and building up to 500, and then intimated that France might be involved, and then Portugal, before siting their factory in Germany and using German engines to power the beast.

The Welsh government spent a lot of time and money on those initial plans and one can only wonder how much effort and cost was expended in France and Portugal to persuade them to consider alternative locations and in the end they chose Germany in which to build this ‘great British’ product.

So having pi**ed off the Welsh, the rest of the Brits, French and Portuguese they are now calling on Europe to save the motor industry.

Crikey the EU can’t even stand up to its own members never mind the Americans. If Mr Trump has achieved one positive result then it’s sounding a wake-up call to the rest of the world!

Electricity is not THE answer, it’s only part of the solution.

Oh, and here’s another thing. Suppose you want to pay cash at the charging machine for your electricity !!!!

Road - Tyre Talk

The automotive after market has changed radically over the years. From scrap yards to vehicle dismantlers to autoparts specialist companies with wee (and some big) vans wheeling about the country delivering basic supplies to garages and private folk around the country.

This has also meant big changes in the logistics side of such operations. Gone are the local stock rooms and huge warehouses, it seems that everyone has adopted the ‘just in time’ approach to stock taking or get it supplied direct by delivery company from the factory.

However that doesn’t just happen, there is a lot of science behind the planning. For instance car dealers and component suppliers need to have some idea of what is likely to be needed, and when, by the great British public. They don’t stick a finger in the air to check which direction the winds of change are blowing, they keep a note of what is being sold on a regular or irregular basis and adjust their own stocking levels and delivery schedules to suit anticipated demand.

Which brings me to Kwik Fit, and here I must admit to a personal interest, but they have just published some details of their own ongoing logistics planning. As one of the nation’s biggest supplier of tyres they need to know which makes and sizes to stock or have readily available and in which areas of the country these are most likely to be needed ….

…. and which brings me to my Citroen Berlingo which is used as the weekly runabout (or skip!) but it would appear that this humble vehicle is second top of Kwik Fit’s list for most visits paid to their centres by a particular make of car.

Now while that in itself is not very interesting, guess which make of car tops this list and lies third behind the Berlingo? Apparently the Tesla Model 3 makes the most visits to their centres while the Tesla Model Y is third. Behind them is a Merc CLA, Volvo XC40, and a couple of BMWs, and not necessarily electric vehicles.

Which kind of suggests that Tesla cars are hard on their tyres and from which we might infer that electric cars are perhaps not as cheap to run as the manufacturers would have us believe with their cheap power supply, less need for servicing and requirement for fewer mechanical parts.

Given the price of tyres these days that surely is something which must be factored into future punters’ buying choice decisions?

Anyway, it’s not quite a lightbulb moment of automotive revelation, but I thought it was of interest, even though I don’t actually buy my tyres from Kwik Fit, although after a recent experience with a brand new replacement full exhaust system – I won’t be back! But that’s another story ….

Rally - Fast fun on airfields

What a coincidence …. It’s just a great pity that there is no website or publication offering full rally reports from events around Scotland these days. Instead hours are spent chasing up individual social media postings trying to piece together what happened, and even then, the full story cannot be found. If it wasn’t for Raymond Mann’s excellent Scotresults service we wouldn’t have had a clue what was going on at the non-spectator Autosave Components Kinloss Spring Rally in the far north at the weekend.

But it was odd that Kinloss was underway at the same time as I was working through one of my 2004 notebooks and came across some notes from another airfield based event less than 15 miles away from Kinloss which took place exactly 21 years ago. The venue was the old Milltown airfield to the north east of Elgin.

Anyway the weekend’s results revealed that John Rintoul had won with a winning time of 77 mins 29 secs for the six stage event, whereas 21 years ago, he finished second to Tom Morris in his MG Metro 6R4.

Tom’s winning time for that rally was 1 hour 57 mins 7 secs for this eight stage event – and you thought Kinloss offered maximum bang for yer buck!

John’s troublesome Ford Escort Cosworth was over two minutes back in second place and more than two minutes up on third placed Robert Sutherland in the Opel Manta.

It was also interesting to note that Allan MacKay was eighth overall in the Anglia WRC and John Marshall was tenth in a Group N Subaru, although he might well have finished in the top four but for a ten minute timing penalty at the end of the penultimate stage. Other notable names at the event included Tony Janetta, Martin Page, Dave Dalgleish, Grahame Dodd and Wattie Warwick. Remember them?

Anyway, don’t think that Morris ran away with the victory. He had to change the Metro’s diff twice during the day and was on his third with no more spares. As for Rintoul he didn’t have things easy either although the Escort behaved itself – for once. He had one of those huge, everlasting, awfy high speed, tummy churning spins on the penultimate stage of the day but there was little to hit on the wide open spaces of Milltown. Lucky sod. For once.

Amazing what you find when you’re not really looking, eh?

Race- Tom Brown, 1950 - 2025

More sad news …. Tom Brown passed away this week. Once upon a time he owned a plumbing business in Cambuslang but he will be better known to legions of Scottish motor sports fans as a motor race and Formula Ford fan, race winner and multiple champion, car builder and fixer, thinker and innovator, teacher and mentor, publicist and promoter, and more than occasionally, pest and troublemaker, but at the heart of it all he was a racer, an out and out racer.

Pest and troublemaker may sound a bit harsh but he was always full of good intentions. Often when the phone rang the unsuspecting listener would pick it up only to hear a cheery voice announce ‘Tom Brown here’ and would find themselves being inveigled into yet another scheme or grand plan.

As his own racing days started to wind down he became more involved in his own Tom Brown Racing Drivers School and Skid Centre but also managed Ingliston race circuit in its latter days. Sadly, uncertainty over the future ownership of the site beside Edinburgh airport plus the astronomical cost of bringing the circuit up to required safety standards thwarted any hopes of a revival and it closed as a motor racing venue in 1994.

Condolences to family and friends.

 

Rally - Wendy Jones, 1934 - 2025

Another wee bit of sad news for those of us of a certain age. Wendy Jones passed away last month at the grand old age of 90 and the funeral was held last week, but I’ve only just found out.

Throughout the 1970s Wendy was a Publicity Executive for ‘The Scotsman’ newspaper and it was Wendy who was behind the newspaper sponsoring the Scottish Rally Championship first with Shell, then with British Airways and finally with Gaelic Oils and it was she who was primarily responsible for the newspaper sponsoring Andrew Cowan throughout that decade. Wendy wasn’t just good at bending the ear of her bosses, it was she who introduced many other co-sponsors to the Scottish Championship and for Andrew’s rallying.

She was full of energy and ideas, one of which was organising the shopping trolley special stage at the 1979 Scottish Championship awards in the Royal Scot Hotel in Edinburgh. She had gone to the trouble of purloining some supermarket wobbly wheeled trolleys and had set up a zig-zag ‘special stage’ on the dance floor of the function room, even going to the extent of acquiring numerous small fir trees to line the course whereupon drivers sat in the trolley while their co-drivers pushed them round the course and all timed by stopwatch.

What a night, bedlam ensued, trolleys were tipped, drivers tumbled and co-drivers bruised. Sadly the exercise was never repeated and no wonder. It needed all of Wendy’s charm and gracious persuasion to assuage a rather irate hotel management. Goodness knows how much the repairs to the dance floor and furniture cost that night. Mind you the bar profits would have been quite stupendous, given the crowd in attendance !!

She was no stranger to the world of motor sport, for her first job was with David Murray who founded the Ecurie Ecosse racing team in Edinburgh where she was the very soul of discretion. Thank goodness, for the tales she could have told would have damned the careers of many a young racing driver in those carefree and sometimes riotous days before red tape and rules changed the sport forever.

Wendy wasn’t one for posing in front of the camera, more content being behind it or directing the shoot and even when she left the newspaper she was always busy on some project, show, exhibition or escapade, even involving me on occasion with my Esso connections.

She was a lady of her time - courtesy and good manners her watchwords, firmness and resolve her ethic. She was indeed, quite a dame.

 The pic shows, back row left to right:
Ken Wood, Dom Buckley, Roger Turnbull, Jonathan Osborne (‘Motor World’ magazine), Ian Muir, Rob Baillie, Willie Crawford and Jon Baillie.
from left to right at the front are:
Bill Taylor, Ian McIvor, Drew Gallacher, Wendy Jones (from 'The Scotsman' newspaper) and Ian Wilson.

Rally - The Lost Notebook !!

Panic …. There are some folk who remain sceptical about my claims of hoarding Notebooks but I have kept them all, at least I think I have, for panic mode has set in. I can’t find my 2003 RSAC Scottish Rally Notebook! I have no doubt it will still be here - somewhere!

However, it’s not where it should be. It’s not amongst my early 2000’s collection (see pic), these three boxes cover the period 2000 to 2006. I must have had it out for checking something in the past and then ‘re-filed’ it back in the wrong shoebox. So another trip to the lofty turret is required to grab the next batch of shoeboxes. Experience has determined that size 11 shoeboxes are ideal for storing spiral bound reporter’s notepads!!

And another thing. Recording and writing up the history of the Scottish Rally Championship ain’t easy. For instance, the books are primarily about the Scottish Championship events but then you come across events like the RSAC and JCMR which incorporate multiple rallies!

Take the 2002 Jim Clark Memorial Rally. There were four separate rallies of varying lengths and duration for the ‘International’ competitors, the National Rally, Clubman Rally and Junior Rally not to mention the different class structures for each. But because these events are on Scottish soil and often contain some elements of Scottish competition they have to be recorded – don’t they? Or should I just stick to the part of the rally which counted towards Scottish Championship points and ignore the others? I have chosen (stupidly) not to do that because reporting on the other rallies puts our lot into context.

By the way I came across some interesting notes from the Colin McRae Stages Rally in 2002. This was the first event to be held in Perth, following Coltness Car Club’s initial foray into the Tweed Valley before achieving the long held desire to base their event in the capital city of McRaeShire, Lanark.

Of course the big problem with a Lanark based event was the fact that there aren’t an awful lot of trees in south Lanarkshire. Apparently it was not for want of trying by the Forestry Commission but they bitterly complained about the unruly local population of Bears which had an awful habit of rubbing themselves up and down against the tree trunks destroying the bark and killing the trees. However the enterprising Coltness bruins discovered a new forest road to the north of Ae Forest overlooking the A74 (now M74) which meant a much shorter run out to the south west forests which also allowed them reasonable access to the Eskdalemuir forests above Moffat.

Anyway, when 55 Car Club did not renew their interest in the ‘Hackle Rally’ that meant a forestry allocation in Perthshire became available and since stage rallying is dependent on good forest roads, it was worth consideration. When Colin was approached about switching venues and the new forests which would be accessible including the likes of Craigvinean, Errochty and Drummond Hill, he was well up for it, and Perth it was.

Once again Colin took time out of his WRC commitments to support his home car club event and ran Course Car duties in his pure white Ford Escort Mk2. As a result, the event attracted huge crowds eager to catch a glimpse of the enigmatic star. The crowds had also turned out in force for the previous day’s media/test session. They had come from far and wide and included visitors from France, Holland, Finland and Norway (I’m sure there were some Swedes too but I didn’t actually meet any of them) as well as England, Wales, Northern Ireland, Eire and even a motley band of Muileachs from the Royal Principality of Mull. 

On the day of the rally ‘the entertainer’ didn’t disappoint – that wasn’t lightning in the Highland forests, it was just a white Mk2!

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