NETRC North West Stages 2014 Results
The first weekend in February means it’s time for a trip to the seaside of Blackpool and once again it was another all action couple of days rallying. A familiar format of 75 competitive miles in 26 stages, some run in the dark and lots of tight road sections thrown in to make both the crew know they were in an endurance event by some of today’s modern standards.
Darren Doherty and Andrew Falconer were the crew that took our maximum points as they took a fantastic 3rd overall in the rally. It may not match Darren’s success of 4 years ago when he won the rally outright with Chris Thirling, but he was still a happy man on Saturday night. Their Subaru Impreza was prepared and run by Tristan and John Pye as usual and was a model of reliability over the 24 hours of rallying. The car was always in the top five overall positions and their only significant time loss was on the third run through Weeton when Darren forgot to switch on the diffs at the stage start and lost about 1 minute. He had been wondering why the car wasn’t handling too clever on that test and so he gave himself a good talking to after that and didn’t make any more schoolboy errors for the remainder of the event.
Next up were Howard Chopping and Jonathan Turnbull. Driving their usual Subaru 555, they struggled to understand why they went to bed on Friday way down in 37th place. They didn’t have any problems but were already over 2 minutes down and they hadn’t done 10 miles yet. Saturday was a much better day for the man from Todmorden and with lots of top 10 times they moved up the leader board to 5th overall after SS23 before losing drive to the front wheels. Unfortunately, the dropped seconds over the last 3 runs meant they had slipped down to 8th place by the finish. A little tired and frustrated but they were glad to open their account on the championship leaderboard.
A Ford Escort Mark 2 was next up but not the one driven by Paul Swift, this one had Keith Robathan holding the wheel. It was good to have the Aberdeen man out with Peter Carstairs in the left hand seat to guide him. Keith was another to be slow out of the blocks with 63 crews faster than him on the opening kart track stage at Preston. From then on there was only one direction to go and the Scots boys would end Friday night in 51st place. Good progress continued through the Saturday stages until the final run through the Blackpool Promenade test when the car in front spun at a very narrow section and blocked the road. With no way past, they cursed their luck as time ticked by. Keith was well and truly fired up now and produced his quickest runs yet through the darkness of Weeton before he dropped more time in the penultimate stage of Clifton when the car in front wouldn’t let him by and more time was lost. Without these incidents they felt that a top ten placing was possible, but they still recorded a good set of points to get their championship underway.
Finishing 8 seconds behind were the husband and wife pairing of Jon and Alison Trenholme. The North Yorkshire farmer didn’t make the second Croft rally 3 weeks ago trying to sort out engine problems on his Subaru Impreza. He’d retired on our opening round, the Christmas Stages, with a re-occurrence of his cooling problems from last year. Despite missing the Jack Frost he’s managed to get new pistons fitted and this seemed to resolve the issues. And that’s the way it played out on the North West Stages too as the car was reliable all day. Unfortunately, Alison wasn’t feeling too great but she kept her other half on the right track and record a solid finish.
Nick Thorne was re-united with Ian Murray for this rally in the Honda Civic. Up to 13th at final service but they slipped down the order to end up in 20th place at the finish. It all started to go wrong on the Promenade test when the Honda hit a barrel of water and smashed the radiator; they picked up time penalties due to police stopping them and wanting the front bumper put back on too. Then the manifold split with a resultant power loss, and then the front left brake caliper bolt fell out at Weeton; they did not have a spare so their only option was to remove caliper and do the final three stages with only one front brake ! Still the lads felt they’d had “a great fun day – proper rallying!” And as a bonus for his trio of consistent finishes this year, Nick now takes the overall lead in the driver’s table.
Ian and Kathryn Forgan were tackling the rally for the first time in their little Ford Ka with a big engine. The couple from Kirkcaldy have managed to shoehorn a 2-litre motor into the engine bay of the tiny car and won their first Scottish Tarmack championship last year. For this weekend, they have ventured further south into Englandshire where they both enjoyed the challenge despite some poor tyre choices on the morning tests and were glad to make to to the end in 21st overall.
Stephen Bethwaite has been away from the championship for a while as he re-shelled his trusty Vauxhall Nova. He paired up with Ann Forster in the left hand seat once more where they’ve recorded lots of class wins. After a steady re-acquaintance on Friday night’s 5 stages, they found themselves in 58th place. No problems on Saturday as they pushed onwards and up the timesheets to 27th back at the Norbreck. No rally class win for them this time out, but more importantly they secured top class points for the championship.
James Thomson and Alison Woodcock brought their similar Vauxhall Nova home less than a minute behind to take second points in the up to 1400cc class. The crew from the Scottish Borders were only slowed by a slightly troublesome gearbox that was jumping out of gear on the last Weeton tests. However, they were another relieved crew to make the finish control in one piece.
Stuart Walker / Julie McGuire had a difficult rally and would be very happy just to be classified as finishers. They were on for a good result after SS17 and lying in 16th place when they had a little ‘incident’ that eventually broke the front sub frame. They struggled on with the frame held in place with ratchet straps and only just managed to get back to the final Main Control in one piece. 31st overall was a poor return on what could have been a top 10 result.
Bill Bates was back out in his little Peugeot 106 again and this time it was with his older daughter Kari on the maps. He was delighted with the reliability of the car and tyre choice in particular, but he wasn’t so used to his daughter shouting at him in the car. We assume it was for encouragement on the stages as they were both smiling from ear to ear at the final control.
Drew Barker / Shona Hale were making steady progress in the wee Vauxhall Corsa and gradually moving up the leaderboard to 34th when on the final run around Weeton, a brake pipe burst. The tried and trusted modification with some molegrips clamped over the affected pipe was required to keep some braking available to the front wheels. This helped them struggle through the last 6 and a half miles of Clifton but they were still chuffed to take 38th overall.
We now move on to those who never lasted the 26 stages and starting with Mark and John Burton who were the first to depart the fray when they broke the steering rack on SS2, Clifton; Andrew Fawcett / Chris Purvis were the sensation of Friday night as they took two second fastest times on Promenade to end Friday 7th overall in their little 1400 Nova. Come Saturday morning though, we find ‘mal de driver’ and Andy can’t stay away from the toilet pan – perhaps it was a dodgy burger or maybe the opposition had spiked his drink ??; Craig Pennington / Michael Calvert were hit by electrical gremlins with the Mitsubishi Evo and as they couldn’t fix it, they decided to go back to service and retire not making the start of Fleetwood1.
Mark Thompson and Phil Kenny’s good run on the fringes of the top 20 ended when an engine mount broke on the first visit to Weeton and with no welding gear available, they called it a day; Antony Dixon with Ryan Moyler sitting alongside in the Vauxhall Astra only made it to the Saturday morning service when the Burnley boys retired; Paul Swift and Giles Dykes called it a day while lying in 11th after SS16, the car blew an oil seal in the gearbox which found its way onto the clutch and that was game over; Alistair Hutchinson and the non registered St John Dykes joined the long list of crews to find a surprise kerb hidden in the long grass on the exit of one of the many corners in Weeton – the resultant impact instantly ripping off the Clio’s left rear wheel. And our final pair of retirees were John Stone and Carl Williamson. John is the long time event sponsor and along with the top co-driver from Ammanford, the pair were in a very comfortable 2nd overall in the Skoda Fabia until 4 stages to go when the car started to lose power, it’s thought that the likely offender being the turbo;
A special thank you goes to Motor Sport (North West) Ltd for another well-organised rally. Such superb scrutineering, documentation, start, parc ferme, rally village and finish facilities all in one location. – the Norbreck Castle Hotel. Oh and a rally stage just over the road too ! There’s always a real buzz about the place and a lot of organisers struggle to match what’s on offer in Blackpool. They’re also very lucky to have 102 starters as well which is something of a rarity these days. One year we might get some decent weather and that will be a bonus !
We now have a 2-month break before the DCC Stages on the 5th April. This is our annual visit to the Royal Highland Showground at Ingliston next to Edinburgh Airport. The event Regulations are expected out soon so keep your eyes out for this one as last year’s rally was over subscribed. We had a few disappointed crews last year so if you’re keen this time around, get your entry in quick. The website to watch for Regulations is http://www.dunfermlinecarclub.co.uk/
And finally for now a quick mention of the Awards Presentation. We’re still trying to get some confirmation from a guest that he can make it but we’ll put out another bulletin once it’s all firmed up.