Sun, sea, stoor - and midges. It could be only one place, Cowal.
Fortunately, an intermittent breeze kept the midges at bay, most of the time, allowing
us to enjoy the thrills and drama of the Dunoon presents Argyll Rally.
Two guys
enjoyed it more than most, the winners, Euan Thorburn and Paul Beaton, but
Garry Pearson and Dale Bowen were an ever present threat.
The two
crews tied on the first stage, but Pearson was 21 seconds quicker on the
second. The reason became apparent when the Focus WRC limped out with a front
wheel puncture. Thorburn was a second quicker on the 3rd test and
then a pretty impressive 14 seconds quicker on the 4th. He took
another 4 seconds back on the 5th as the fightback continued.
The difference
was almost a minute by the end of the 6th stage. This time it was
Pearson who appeared with a punctured tyre in the Fiesta R5! That was too much
to take back with just two stages remaining, so the top two positions were now
settled.
Despite
continuing stalling problems with his Focus – “I’m still not sure if it’s me or
the car” - Bruce McCombie finished 3rd ahead of Michael Binnie who
had spent day welding metal to a front bottom arm which had been bent when he
punctured a tyre in the Lancer.
In an excellent
5th place was the ever improving Thomas Gray who had also punctured
a tyre and bent a bottom arm in his Lancer. Rounding off the top six was John
Wink who had a miserable day with the Hyundai. An intermittent electrical fault
was switching the car from 2WD to 4WD whenever it decided - without first
consulting John. The fault was eventually traced to the rear differential
clutch which cuts drive to the rear wheels when the handbrake is applied, but there
was no fix.
Top 2WD
runner was Iain Wilson in 8th place overall with his Mk2 while first
time out in his new Mk2 was a knackered wee boy called Mark McCulloch. He
finished 10th but the car has no power steering – and Argyll is just
full of corners.
Top 1600
runner was Jude MacDonald in the Skoda R2 beating the rapid and experienced Barry
Lindsay in his Peugeot by 8 seconds. A marvellous result for the youngster
considering the pace and experience of Barry, although Barry did have a
puncture on the first stage. Angus Lawrie might have troubled both of them with
the pace of his C2, till he parked it in a ditch in SS3.
Scott
Peacock was top 1400 runner, a task made easier when Niall Cowan Jnr retired. And
the cause? Put it this way, he’ll need an awfy big magnet to find all the bits
after a rod made a bid for freedom through the block.
Full report
in Wednesday’s ‘Motorsport News’ and the usual longer report in the online mag
later in the week.
Results
1, Euan
Thorburn/Paul Beaton (Ford Focus WRC) 40m 36s
2, Garry
Pearson/Dale Bowen (Ford Fiesta R5) +1:02
3, Bruce McCombie/Michael
Coutts (Ford Focus WRC) +1:44
4, Michael
Binnie/Claire Mole (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo9) +2:46
5, Thomas
Gray/Harry Marchbank (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo9) +3:18
6, John Wink/Neil
Shanks (Hyundai i20 R5) +3:25
7, Alan
Dickson/Martin Forrest (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo9) +4:43
8, Iain
Wilson/Chris Williams (Ford Escort Mk2) +5:21
9, Ian
Baumgart/Sinclair Young (Subaru Impreza) +5:29
10, Mark McCulloch/Michael
Hendry (Ford Escort Mk2) +5:41
