Rally - Whatever happened to?

Yesterday’s trawl through the dust and cobwebs ahead of this weekend’s Voly Grampian Forest Rally prompted a few more thoughts. Over the years this sport has produced a truck load of individual talents and yet so few ever made it to the higher echelons of professional rallying or the World Rally Championship.

Scotland has produced four World Champions, Louise, Colin, Derek and Robert while England has produced two, David Richards and Richard Burns, and fingers crossed Wales will get its chance soon with Elfyn. So how come countries a lot smaller than ours can produce so many more world stars? A conundrum, Eh?

Take a look back at 1990, and the North East’s premier motor sports event. A counter in both the RAC MSA Mintex National and Esso Scottish Championships, ADMC’s Granite City Rally that year offered 13 stages totalling 80 miles of forest roads contained in a fairly compact 225 mile route.

After a stirring battle, Jim McRae and Rob Arthur in an Audi quattro won the event by a mere 12 seconds from Japan’s Hideaki Myoshi with Keith Oswin in a Mitsubishi Galant VR4. The top Group N crew were Robbie head and Steve Bond in fifth place overall in their Ford Sapphire Cosworth but Finland’s Mika Sohlberg’s Lancia Delta Integrale violently encountered a rather stout piece of granite and Jimmy Girvan rolled his Toyota Celica GT4.

However, there was more ‘local’ success further down the 115 car field with Dom Buckley Jnr and Douglas Redpath finishing a superb 12th overall and winning the Group N Mazda Challenge category. And even further back was a relative newcomer to the sport. Alister McRae and David Senior won the 1300cc class in their Vauxhall Nova finishing a thoroughly creditable 36th overall amongst such tough company on such an arduous event.

Donald Milne didn’t get far. The Metro Nissan’s rear diff failed on the start line of the third stage at Gartly Moor and a certain Jon Burn with Colin Ross failed to finish after they went OTL with a very troubled outing in a Talbot Sunbeam.

Oh! And by the way, the Entry Fee was £215 plus £18.50 for the Bowring Insurance – happy days, eh?

And if you’re looking for more info, it’s all in the books:

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

 

Rallying in the North

This weekend’s Voly Grampian Forest Rally (8/9 August) may well concentrate the minds of rally folks on future possibilities. Behind the scenes in Aberdeen City Council, SportScotland and MS UK there is work going on with a view to bringing a round of the World Rally Championship to Scotland. Added to that, there would appear to be a clear understanding of the financial commitment required - and that hasn’t frightened anyone off yet.

The idea is not quite as daft as some people might think. Aberdeen has the facilities, the North East has the forests and Scotland has the clubs, volunteers and expertise.

The North East already has a history of staging big events having previously hosted rounds of the British Rally Championship in the 1980s and 90s.

For instance, forty years ago, the then one-day Granite City Rally managed to run 96 cars through their 14 stage route and given the way that World Rally events are run these days, hosting a WRC counter would be a doddle. OK, maybe not quite a doddle, but most certainly workable and manageable.

Driving the prototype RED Ford Sierra 4x4T, Willie Rutherford and Bryan Harris won the 1985 event with a time of 79 mins 51 seconds. Driving his new Nissan 240RS George Marshall, with Lyn Jenkins finished second some 41 seconds behind. That’s quite a feat, the 2WD machine losing out to the 4WD turbo by less than a minute over 75 miles of forest roads. It’s also worth noting that a certain Louise Aitken-Walker with Ellen Morgan finished sixth overall in a Ford Escort Mk2.

On a separate note, according to Police and AA patrol estimates, there were some 40,000 spectators in the Grampian forests for the rally that day.

Photos show Willie and Bryan with John Horton and also Keith Oswin of ‘Autosport’ magazine (when it used to be a weekly and covered rallying!) making a presentation to Bryan with Willie wondering: “It’s a bit late for that, is it not?”

https://www.grampianforestrally.com/

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

 

Lombard Rally Festival

Spent a pleasant hour or so at Craufurdland Castle just outside Kilmarnock yesterday. Tim Nash was hosting a wee bit of a media day for his two-day Lombard Rally Festival in the castle estate on the weekend of 23/24 August. The un-missable Euan Ruddick from the ‘Ayrshire Daily News’ was in attendance but I’m still not sure whether you see him before you hear him, or hear him before you see him. However, methinks the Scrutineers will need to include him in their pre-event rally car Noise Test!

Tim also had a drone flying above the ‘rally stage’ to film a couple of cars which were trying out the stage, Craig Gibson in his Ford Escort Mk1 and young Gregor Beatson in his Skoda Citigo with both drivers reporting big improvements on last year’s inaugural event. Hamilton Tarmac have been in over recent weeks to seal the two hairpins and flatten the bumps. There will be some film clips and more photos posted on the Lombard Rally Festival social media pages for info.

The rally stage will be run both days and the organisers have a full entry of 50 invited rally cars and there will be a classic car gathering and show on both days although the classic cars will have a scenic road run on the Saturday. More details to come.

In fact, Andy Dodds will have a sneak preview of what’s to come on the Friday evening (22nd) at his ‘Autocare’ premises on Heathfield Road, Ayr with a display of rare and exotic rally cars displayed on the grass outside the roadside premises and some guests in the showroom if you fancy a nosey and a natter.

Craig Gibson said the ‘new’ stage was much better than last year and is looking forward to giving the Ford Escort Mk1 a bit of a blast in three weeks time and young Gregor Beatson was there with his Skoda Citigo and reckoned the stage was much better suited to the 1 litre Junior Rally Challenge cars. Lauchlan Hunter was also in attendance, but car-less! His MG3 “is still in bits” after his RSAC Scottish Rally outing when he hit a rock and broke the front suspension. And he was only a second off the category lead at the time! Rallying, eh?

And if you’ve ever wondered what the ‘S.A.S Motorsport’ stands for that adorns the flanks’ of Craig’s Mk1, those are the initials of ‘Shifter’ (faither), Audrey (the Matriarch) and ‘Shifty’ (Craig) and check out the badge.

Oh, and by the way, that’s a ‘Peat & Diesel’ hoodie that Audrey is wearing – obviously a woman of great musical taste.

https://www.facebook.com/LombardRallyBath/?locale=en_GB