Rally - Looking Back to the RAC

It’s amazing what you find when you’re not really looking for it. This is the Ford Motor Company on-event Media Pack from the 2002 Network Q RAC Rally. It was full of pre-event info on the teams, drivers, codrivers, the cars and the route with the added Rally booklets called ‘Media Guides’.

These contained additional on-event information gleaned from crews and teams during the rally and then compiled back at Rally HQ for distribution to those journalists and media experts who didn’t want to venture out into the November cold and wet!

Instead, teams of journalists, aspiring journalists and PR crews were dispatched to Stage Finish Controls and Service Areas to interrogate drivers, co-drivers, service crews and any other team personnel. The quotes obtained were then sent back to Rally HQ for the Media Office to compile into these Media Guide booklets for issuing to the Press. 

These info gathering teams and personnel had been pre-arranged prior to the rally by the Media Officer and were supplied with telephone cards or bags of coins so that reports could be phoned back in to HQ – mobile phones were still in their infancy in those far off simpler days!

Indeed many newspaper and magazine reports were compiled back then by ‘reporters and journalists’ whose fingers remained un-frostbitten and feet which stayed cosy and dry, and whose free hand-out woolly hats never felt a snow flake on their bobble. Possibly the only rally car they saw was the one on the Finish line with champagne dripping off it!

And so it was left to the eedjits and dafties who braved and endured the elements all in search of stories and info against an impossible timetable who supplied the ‘real’ journalistic fodder back in HQ! Aye, them were’t days, but what a rush!

 

 

Rally - Dave Weston Jnr

Shock news this morning …. Scottish rallying has lost another good pal. Dave Weston Junior aged just 35 years passed away suddenly and unexpectedly on Saturday. Having survived pancreatitis last year he was resuming almost normal life. He was actually back at work when he collapsed, so this has come as a terrible shock to the family.

Dave Junior will be well known to Scottish and British rally folks, especially the Scottish Championship and BTRDA series regulars. He started rallying in a Ford Fiesta ST in 2007, won his first rally in 2009, the Malton Forest Rally in a Subaru, and stopped rallying in 2016 after winning his ‘home’ event, the Coltel Grampian Stages Rally.

The family have requested privacy at this time as they try to come to terms with this tragic news.

( Further information will follow in due course )

Book - On Sale NOW

Job done! The latest book ‘The Scottish Rally Championship 2000-2009’ is now on sale and on-line. 260 pages and over 360 photographs, the majority of which have never before been published, this A4 hard backed book carries on from the previous volumes which covered the 1980s and 1990s decades.

Admittedly it took a wee while today grappling with computer terminology and mystifying acronyms but I got there. Mind you, matters were not helped when the computer and software company said it had further developed the software, added more functionality and improved the ‘intuitive’ (their word!) user experience. My wee heart sank at those supposedly encouraging and inspiring remarks.

As is usual these days there was no helpline or human to turn to, just lists of FAQs but I managed to add the new book to the on-line sales platform. What sounds like a simple operation is far from it. It entails the adoption of a mental dexterity which can only be fuelled by the invention of new sweary words, the more exotic and celtic in flavour, the better! The bigger surprise is that it works!

So that’s it, a permanent record of each and every round of the Scottish Rally Championship from the start of the new Millennium to the end of year 2009 with the usual photographic chapters at the back of the book. The book of course concentrates primarily on Scottish rallying matters but that tragic event in 2007 had to be addressed. Any book on Scottish rallying simply could not ignore it. I just hope folk agree with what has been done.

There are a few personality pages but the choice of front cover was always going to be difficult. Two drivers each won the Scottish National title in that decade and perhaps they should both have featured on the front cover. However, I didn’t want that. Instead I chose the crew who won the first round of the first Championship and became the first Scottish Champions of a new millennium.

However, a word of caution when ordering the new book. Just make sure you pick the right one! Maybe I made a mistake in having all the books bound in a blue cover, perhaps they should have been different colours for each decade so they would be easier to select. But I didn’t, they are ‘5 Star’ blue and yellow with a different front cover photo. I like it, I just hope you do.

The book costs £45 plus £5 P&P and is available to order now at:

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

 

 

Book - Night of Champions

Yet again, that was some night and once again, Coltness Car Club and Dalserf Bowling Club were the perfect hosts for the latest book launch – ‘The Scottish Rally Championship 2000-2009’. Everyone had a good time telling and listening to tales from long and not so long ago. And for those who had travelled far and were in need of nourishment, Tunnock’s had provided some appetite fulfilment in the form of caramel wafers, tea cakes and snowballs – and I didnae get a single biscuit !! Rascals and scavengers the lot of them.

My dear ‘friend’ Stewart ‘the Larkhall Foghorn’ Weir was in fine form as MC. He managed to insult each and every one of the guests plus a few members of the congregation for good measure. He started with Max McRae, Andrew Wood, Stuart Loudon and then after a wee Tunnock’s T-break resumed with Dave Weston, David Bogie and Jim McRae, while sitting quietly at the back of the room was three times Scottish Rally Champion Ken Wood, keeping a low profile and keeping out of Stewart Weir’s eyeline!

Also keeping a watchful eye and ear on proceedings were John Bogie, Murray Grierson and many, many others, while it was particularly good to see Alan Arneil amongst the throng. It was Alan who sold Jim McRae his first (and second) rally car – and they’re still ‘friends’! And the rest is history.

Books sales were brisk and if anyone wishes to post their first impressions of the latest volume, feel free – and tell your friends!

The plan now is to update the website and with a bit of luck (and technical expertise) that will be done tomorrow, but I’ll let you know.

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

And finally, my personal thanks to each and every one of those who attended the ‘do’ last night. Some had travelled far just to be there – and get in first for their copies!

Aye, it was a grand night.

 

Book - Don’t panic, don’t panic

OK, I did, but only a wee bit! The first batch of books were delivered yesterday – just a tad later than originally planned/hoped! But they are here now so all is good and Monday’s (3rd Nov) launch of the latest book ‘The Scottish Rally Championship 2000-2009’ is good to go.

The venue is - as before - the Dalserf Bowling Club in Ashgill, just outside Larkhall in Lanarkshire. This is the regular watering hole for ‘The Coltness Bears’ who meet monthly in the premises but this Monday’s gathering will be a wee bit special as Coltness Car Club are once again hosting this book launch. Guests and visitors are coming from near and far and Stewart Weir will be wandering around amongst the throng – microphone in hand!

Visitors should also be advised (warned?) that this will be an MSUK-free zone! No blazers and no political correctness permitted. Even Jonathan Lord won’t be there – he’s across the waatter in Ireland, so we’ll be safe to vent opinions and discuss such topics as home rule for Scottish motor sport !!!! Amongst the guests will be a number of past Scottish and British Rally Champions, a current Portuguese Champion and rumour has it that one young lad will be bringing his Grandad with him – both proven rally winners!

So it’s all set for Monday 3rd November at the Dalserf Bowling Club, Ashgillhead Rd, Ashgill, Larkhall, ML9 3AF. Doors open 7.45pm for 8.00 pm, but it is informal so dinnae worry about time keeping, just turn up when  you’re showered, hair combed and overalls pressed.

The Dalserf Bowling Club in the village of Ashgill is easily accessible heading East on the A71 from Junction 8 (Canderside Toll) on the M74 at Larkhall.

Between the Motorway and Garrion Bridge there’s a set of traffic lights on the A71 at which travellers should turn off (South) at this cross-roads towards Ashgill. The club access road is less than a mile along there on the left (tight left!), so just ca’ canny as you approach.

One other thing, if you haven’t been to a CCC club night before you will drive past the entrance to the Bowling Club at least once before you see it. So dinnae worry, we’ve all done it! It’s a tight left on to an unsurfaced narrow road between the first and second wee hooses. Just beware that two new ‘speed restriction’ humps have been inserted into the tarmac. Enter too quickly and they will rattle your teeth, or in some cases shatter your dentures.

There’s a fairly big car park at the foot of the lane on the right, see photos below, with an artistically and strategically placed Citroen Berlingo to show the expanse. Entrance to the Bowling Club is just beyond the car park.

What3Words: ///trespass.flashing.toffee

And finally, I’ve had a couple of calls this past week about copies of the previous ‘1980s’ and ‘1990s’ books, and yes, I have some left as well as copies of the ‘Mull Murmurs’ books and I’ll have them with me on Monday night.

Otherwise these can still be ordered on the website at:

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

The latest ‘2000s’ book will be available on-line a couple of days later once I get Monday night out of the way!!

Having done all this, I’ve now got a little more time to ‘panic, PANIC’ some more !