SSDT - Look-back

Another look-back …. Following yesterday’s post, and the feelings of withdrawal symptoms, a few folk commented on the scenery being part of the attraction of the SSDT, but there’s more to it than that. The riders become an intrinsic and physical part of the scenery itself and by the end of the week they’ll have the scrapes, scratches and bruises to prove it. They have to feel their way around every inch, foot and yard of the 450 mile six day route with rocks, roots and river flows trying to toss them off at every opportunity.

The event can trace its roots back to the first reliability trial in 1909 making this one of the UK’s longest running motor sports events and quite possibly the oldest motor cycle trial in the world.

Partly due to the popularity of the SSDT, the Edinburgh & District Motor Cycle Club organising team were asked to create an event based in Lochaber which would comprise a round of the 1992 FIM World Trials Championship. Sponsored by BP, the event itself was a success but it failed to excite the Scots because along with the FIM came a whole new set of rules, limitations, course requirements and other demands. Yes, it was spectacular and extremely difficult in places, but the SSDT it was not!

Don’t get the idea the SSDT is/was a softer option than a World Trial. The two don’t compare. The SSDT is as much an endurance event as a skills based competition but it hasn’t lost its amateur heart. Competitors will still help each other out while the spectators root for everyone regardless of skill level. The atmosphere is quite unique and thoroughly engrossing.

I remember chatting with a kindly old lad from Texas (that’s the Trumpland one, not the pop group) and I quoted him in my newspaper reports. He had visited just about every round of the FIM World series at least once but he made a point of visiting the SSDT every year! Besides the competition, it was the scenery, the camaraderie of the fans and the kindness and hospitality of the local folk that brought him back year after year. What an advert for Scotland, in fact the only thing he didn’t like was a haggis supper. I think it was the ‘deep fried in batter’ approach that bamboozled him.

These photos are from my first reports on the 1982 event.

 

SSDT

Frustration and Disappointment …. Plans had been made, food and clothing packed and van loaded for a long-ish trip. Then came the telephone call – Can we borrow the van? It was the weans and the grandweans. They were off to Centre Parcs for a week – only they weren’t. They couldn’t get all their paraphernalia into their car – the bikes, pram, cot, high chair, multiple changes of clothing, wellies and footwear, nappies, food etc. In other words, a major flitting!  

I had nothing booked, just going to head north for a couple of days to sit on a rock and watch the world go by.  

It was the annual call of the wild. Some folk go to the hills, mountains and rivers to listen to birdsong, deer bleating and snorting, Hielan' coos bellowing and even haggis rustling and grunting in the heather clad slopes, or it may be the soothing sounds of water trickling or rushing over rocky stream and river beds, or maybe it is the native flora which tickles their fancies. Not me – this time!

For me, the attractions are the sonorous serenades of high revvin' two strokes and the rhythmic beat of single cylinder four strokes plus other tunes played on a variety of internal combustion instruments, some more melodic than others, and dependent on the musician, or in this specific case, the person ‘hingin’ oan tae the haunelbars’!  

Many nature followers and rustic devotees are no lovers or appreciators of things man made, especially if they emit un-natural sounds and oily whiffs, but that is precisely why thousands of other folk head for the Highlands in the first week of May each year. Not for them the mating calls and antics of the red grouse, nope, it’s the multi coloured metal machinery and the harlequin hued riders in their coarse protective garb and hard hats that are the big attraction – this is the annual gathering for the International Scottish Six Days Trial at Fort William.  

Although a fan of all things motorised on two wheels, I personally am more of a ‘faller-offer’ than a motor cycle trials rider but I was captivated by this event on my first visit way back in the late 1970s. It’s one of Scotland’s biggest secrets. Over 300 competitors riding over terrain where normal folks would require crampons and ropes. The skills on display were breathtaking and yes, there were a few fallers-off, but of a higher calibre and much more stylish than my own, and which only made me appreciate the competition all the more.

The competition back then consisted of six days in the saddle, or on the pegs, whereby the riders would tackle around 30 Observed Sections on each of the six days. Simple eh? But these OS had been contrived by more devious minds than anything AI could come up with. The route masochists lay out these sections up, down, around and over tree roots, rocks, scree slopes, waterfalls, in fact anything that the more fiendish mind can conjure up using the natural terrain. The idea is to ride these sections ‘feet up’ without ‘dabbing’ for balance otherwise marks are lost. Also, there is very little public road use linking these off-road sections, more usually riding across desolate moors, bogs and more rocks.

On my first visit I was struck by the huge number of spectators, many of whom were furriners, and this despite the complete lack of general publicity for an event which attracted competitors from over 20 nations. How did they know it was on and more importantly how did they find the route?  

The only Press folk I encountered were from the specialist press so I started making a few phone calls ahead of the following year. Armed with commissions from ‘The Daily Telegraph’, ‘The Scotsman’, ‘Glasgow Herald’ and BBC Radio I returned the following year to report on each day’s competition. I was even granted a riding pass by the then CofC Jim McColm so that I could follow the actual route and my admiration for the competitors grew even more.

Sadly it didn’t last. Newspapers even then were cutting back on copy and expenses. A week in the highlands was expensive for a freelance journalist while football writers were on double or treble the fees sitting on their backsides in a stadium. Besides, other activities were commanding more of my attention – rallies and motor races!

Ever since then, I have promised myself a return. Not to report, but just to spectate, to sit and watch and listen and join in the applause which rolls through the spectating groups whenever they witness a ‘clean’. The technology and competition has moved on since then but this event retains its innocent essence. The organisers have consistently refused any invitation to be part of any World Championship. It’s like the Mull Rally, unique in its appeal and challenge, and that alone summons the curious, the faithful and the adventurists.

It’s like a special stage rally but without a navigator, roll cage or weather protection. If you haven’t been it’s worth a visit. It is still my most favourite motor sports event and I will return. Next year, definitely, for sure, eh?

P.S. The photos are from 1984, back when the world was black & white!

#SSDT

 

Rally - Weekend reading

It may surprise some of you to know that I used to write for ‘The Sunday Times’ – occasionally (very occasionally - and not often enough ‘cos they were good payers!) and whilst working on my current book I came across this article which was published in the newspaper way back in March 1999. Back then ‘The Times’ was not renowned for its rallying coverage but even they had had heard of the high speed prodigy from Lanark. Anyway, having become aware of the rising star’s proposed latest antics, they asked if I could write a piece, and bearing in mind it wasn’t ‘Motoring News’ this is what I wrote and which was subsequently published :

Colin McRae …. It’s a joke. Colin McRae in a Formula 1 race car? He won’t fit. The lanky Lanarkian has about as much chance of getting into a Stewart-Ford as Mo Mowlam has of getting into a Naomi Campbell nightie.

The reason for press speculation is McRae himself. Electrifying in a rally car, the enigmatic Scot conjures up an excitement born out of the unexpected. If it has an engine and four wheels, McRae is the man. Whereas other drivers may approach a new car tentatively and settle in gradually, McRae can wring its neck within ten seconds of turning on the ignition.

In many ways, McRae invites comparisons with the late Henri Toivonen. Worshipped by fans, defended by friends, but awkward with the press and possessed of a mischievous streak, the similarities do not end there.

Like McRae, Toivonen had a famous motor sporting Dad, Pauli, who undoubtedly opened doors for him in his early days, but like McRae, Toivonen earned his seat wherever and whatever he drove. Toivonen shot to fame and endeared himself to British rally fans when he won the RAC Rally in 1980 at the wheel of a Talbot Sunbeam Lotus. Coming just five years after his rallying debut in a 1300cc Simca, his RAC win changed his status overnight and there were times when it showed that he was uncomfortable with the fame and the attention.

The early 1980s were peppered with rally car shrapnel as Toivonen honed his prodigious talent. From Talbot he went to Opel and then to Lancia who kept faith with the young Finn until his tragic accident in 1986. Unusually, Toivonen combined a burgeoning motor racing career in Formula 3 cars with occasional outings in a sports/GT car.

One of the few drivers to cross disciplines successfully, Toivonen could have been successful in either. A born natural, he stunned onlookers when he lapped the Estoril F1 track just two seconds shy of the track record – in a rally car!

Tragically, this promising career was curtailed prematurely. On the Tour de Corse World Championship Rally, Toivonen and co-driver Sergio Cresta, were killed when their Lancia Delta S4 left the road, crashed and burst into flames.

McRae too has that raw natural ability. Like team boss Cesare Fiorio of Lancia, David Richards of Prodrive kept faith with the young McRae during his ‘learning curve’, and like Lancia, the Subaru team appeared to require more panel beaters than mechanics!

McRae has matured, but nothing has dimmed his searing pace in anything on wheels, two or four. Witness his performance earlier this week in the brand new Ford Focus which weighs 200 kilos more than the race-winning opposition. He utterly dominated the Rally of Portugal leading from first to last of the 21 Special Stages. His speed stunned his rivals. Now they are wondering what will happen when the overweight Focus reaches its true fighting trim.

The mechanics have forgiven him for remarks taken out of context during a press interview following Ford’s disqualification from the Monte Carlo Rally, but the incident served only to make McRae more wary of the press. Now that he has joined the ranks of millionaire superstars he has become fair game to those people who enjoy putting heroes on pedestals, only to knock the feet from under them.

Basically a shy person, McRae’s demeanour is often mistaken for arrogance. To those who don’t know him, he is selfish and uncommunicative, but to those who do know him, he is still the same tearaway who started driving autotest cars at the age of 16 accompanied by his ‘minders’ from Coltness Car Club.

McRae occasionally attends car club meetings in Blackwood and is stoutly defended by club members, known throughout Scottish motor sport as ‘ the Bears’. A wrong word in front of any one of them invites the same response as a slap in the face from a gauntlet. This protectionism is justified. McRae personally underwrites the club’s counter in the Scottish Rally Championship, the Lanark based McRae Stages Rally.

Last year McRae turned up to run Course Car duty, not because he had to, or felt obliged to, but because he wanted to. That’s not the action of a selfish or petulant superstar, that is the mark of an enthusiast and one who remembers and keeps his friends.

His run in the F1 car must also be taken seriously. It will cost the Stewart team a six figure sum to modify the car and run the test. It’s not simply a matter of sliding the seat back and adjusting the steering wheel. McRae is fully five inches taller than Reubens Barrichello and Johnny Herbert, and his shoes are three sizes bigger. In a car which fits like a wet suit with less room than a bobsleigh, installing the gangly McRae will be no easy task.

Neither will it be McRae’s first taste of single seater racing cars. He drove a Formula Renault car in early ’96 before driving the Jordan F1 car later that year. Running back to back with Martin Brundle, McRae was 1.87 seconds shy of Brundle’s best at Silverstone. Eddie Jordan was quite impressed although not surprised.

He was not tempted then to make the switch nor is he likely to be tempted this time. If truth be told, he is far too valuable where he is. Ford have made a huge investment in McRae, £6m over two years which puts him ahead of David Coulthard, Eddie Irvine, Damon Hill and Johnny Herbert. Ford has also made a huge investment in Cockermouth based Malcolm Wilson who runs the Ford World Rally Team. Budgets are not quite at F1 levels, but at £370,000 for a Ford Focus World Rally Car, they are getting there.

That’s perhaps another reason why McRae won’t make the switch, or be allowed to make the switch. Dubbed the ’Schumacher of rallying’ he is too important to the sport. His profile is higher than any other rally driver, not because of any ability to charm the press and TV public, but because of the aura of visceral expectancy he generates every time he steps into a car. F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone now has responsibility for the TV rights to rallying and he will surely not allow the sport to lose it star.

If he were to make the switch, there are those who think that McRae would become just another Grand Prix driver making up the numbers, but that’s not his style. His fans reckon he would be just the tartan tonic to take on the teutonic automaton.

This isn’t his first taste of motor racing. In 1992, Prodrive entered him in a BMW at the Scottish round of the British Touring Car Championship at Knockhill. In streaming wet conditions, McRae finished 8^th in the first heat and 5^th in the second, although he was later disqualified for ‘ungentlemanly conduct’ at the Hairpin when Matt Neal was nudged off the track. According to McRae, it was Neal’s fault because he was going too slow, whereas Neal’s opinion was that the rally driver was just a hooligan!

Three years after his first F1 trial, fans relish the prospect of more McRae magic, but any prospects of a career switch are extremely fanciful. He has some unfinished business with three times world rally champion, Tommi Makkinen.

….. as written 26 years ago!!

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