ASP NETRC 2014 – DCC Stages Results

Scots Rule At Home. On our annual visit to Edinburgh for the DCC Stages, Stuart Baillie, Ross Fernie and Ian Forgan locked out all the podium places for our championship contenders.

Stuart Baillie was making his return to the championship after a couple of years away and made an instant impact. More surprising as the many short straights and square corners of the Royal Highland Showground road system is a venue that he doesn’t really enjoy. And with a sponsor settled into the silly seat for the first time, the opening stage would be interesting. From the off, a new oil breather for the Subaru Impreza wasn’t working as well as hoped and the trail of smoke looked worse than it really was. Then a heavy landing after the big jump knocked the intercom off for the last lap of SS1. The clocks showed he was second fastest so not much time lost in there. Things settled down for the rest of the rally and his only concern were his lack of suitable tyres – but this was mainly due to the fact that the rubber had been used often and seen better days.

Next up was the new pairing of Ross Fernie and Chris Thirling. Chris brings a wealth of experience into the partnership including taking overall victory on this rally in 2013. They started the day running second on the road and in a rather cautious manner too as the roads were quite slippy plus they caught car 1 as well. Thereafter running first on the drying stages, they were able to get some clear air and Rossco settled into a good rhythm and the John Pye prepared Subaru Impreza ran faultlessly to end up in 4th overall. With the crew both playing their ‘Jokers’ on the day as well, they’ve right up near the top of the scoring tables already.

And next up were the luckiest crew of the day – the husband and wife team of Ian and Kathryn Forgan. Their day started quietly and they were only 9th as Ian complained at the end of the first stage that the rear end of the little Ka didn’t always want to follow the front end. Things settled down after that and they moved up to 6th overall until stage 7 when the Ford coasted to a halt mid stage with transmission failure. Whilst awaiting a tow back to service another competitor damaged an electricity box that caused sparks to be flying in all directions. The Clerk of the Course then took the decision to cancel that stage and also the final one as well. This meant that results were declared after SS6, as this was the last stage run cleanly. Never has Ian been so happy to have a rally cut short as he thought it was all over for them. And having played their ‘Jokers’ for the rally, they are both now in the top 3 of our overall standings. Rumour has it that they were heading off sharpish after the event to buy a Lottery ticket …

Darren Doherty and Stewart Merry finished 13 seconds behind the Forgans in 7th place. This was their first visit to Ingliston for the pair and they found the venue to be very different from anything they’ve done before. However, they just got their heads down all day and apart from a little problem on the second stage, they produced consistent top ten times. This good haul of points keeps Darren in the hunt for major honours later in the year.

Barry and Michael Lindsay were next up to round off the top ten and take yet another class win. The little Peugeot 106 performed faultlessly apart from the occasional issue with tyres – they couldn’t get any heat into rears on the first stage, SS3 wasn’t so good as a decision to change rubber when the rain came after SS2 wasn’t right ( a delay at the stage 3 arrival coincided with another weather change back to dry and sunny conditions ) and then they suffered 2 nearside punctures. The punctures happened after hitting a pothole near the end of stage 7 but this test was subsequently cancelled after the ‘electrical problems’ stopped the rally.

Neil Thompson was making a rare appearance with his Vauxhall Corsa Kit car on his local event. He enlisted the services of Chris Purvis for the day and they ended up 28 seconds adrift of the Lindsays in 14th. Problems included having to change an engine mount after the opening run and a big spin after the jump on stage 3.

Right behind was another new partnership of Barry Renwick and Steve Dargan. The Tynemouth crew were using this event to get to know each other in the car and also for Barry to familiarise himself with the car again before The Clark. The all singing and dancing Mark2 Escort really struggled to get the power down on the morning’s slippy runs and there wasn’t enough stage mileage in the afternoon to make an impact. They were happy enough with their day at the finish and Steve’s huge grin was enough evidence of how much he’d enjoyed himself.

Nick Thorne and Ian Murray collected more useful points to keep Nick leading the driver’s section of the championship. No major dramas or damage on the day but they did learn that the Honda Civic worked better in the afternoon’s clockwise runs of the stage. 19th overall was their reward and they were classified just ahead of Chris McCallum in his Ford Escort Mark2 even though they both had the same penalties. Chris’ day got off to a bad start at 5.30 am, when the key broke in the ignition of the service van just as he were about to leave home. Then the starter solenoid jammed and he had to bump start the car at the start of the third test and finally on SS4 after hitting a deep pothole, he bent a steering arm and knocked the tracking out.

Another steady run for Geoffrey Harkness and Caroline Lodge would see them bring the little Vauxhall Corsa back to the finish 3rd in class just ahead of Tom Middlemiss and Richard Stewart. The Fife man got off to a slow start in his highly visible Vauxhall Nova before settling into good pace and making it to 33rd overall at the end. And 2 seconds further back we had another Nova but this one was the wee 1400cc version with the Borders’ pairing of James Thomson and Len Freshwater. James was struggling before lunch with a car that was jumping out of 1st and 2nd gears so he was probably pleased that he made it to the end of a shortened event and still takes maximum points in his class for the championship.

Over a minute adrift were his class rivals, Drew Barker and Shona Hale. Their tartan livered Corsa has undergone some suspension upgrades over the last 2 months so Drew was a little edgy going into his home rally. He felt he was driving with some caution but the view from that left hand seat was that he was driving like a ‘pussy’!! Just behind was Nigel Hepburn without his usual man Richard Clark who was unfit for co-driving duties but fit enough to do some servicing for him. A poor time on the first stage meant he was always playing catch-up for the remaining 5 runs but he brought his Renault Clio home in 43rd position. Alan Cowan was our last driver home as he was classified in 51st overall. A poor return considering he went into stage 6 in 31st slot before snapping a driveshaft on his Vauxhall Astra and being awarded a stage maximum to drop him down the order. However, if the last 2 runs hadn’t been cancelled he would have been shown as retired – every cloud … And our final points scorer was Phil Kenny sitting in a non registered Peugeot 106. He only got the phone call 2 days prior to the rally and had never sat with his driver before so it turned out to be a good, trouble free day for them both.

We only had four retirements on the day starting with the GTM Coupe of Ed Todd and Andy Brown. The wee red beastie only managed 1 lap of the first stage before stopping with a suspected dropped valve; Mike Farmer on his first rally in 15 years felt he was overdriving his Ford Focus everywhere and in stage 2 a cone took out the alternator belt; Mark and John Burton got into stage 3 despite taking a maximum on stage 2 with gear selection problems before retiring just after the jump halfway through the test when “something broke on landing” and Stuart Walker and Julie McGuire were our final retirees as they were forced out on the last stage before lunch. Going into this stage in 12th place overall they came across another car coming out of one of the many stage merges and decided to let this Ford Escort into the next corner first. Unfortunately, this driver choose his braking point quite a few yards earlier than Stuart and the ensuring collision and spin damaged the Mitsubishi’s radiator.

Thanks go to all at Dunfermline Car Club for providing our championship contenders with another well run rally that comes up with it’s own unique challenges. We can now look forward to our only chance to run on the closed public roads in Berwickshire with the Jim Clark National. For this year, the rally HQ and documentation will be based at Kelso Racecourse with service at the Springwood Park but the stages are run around the Duns area. As is customary now, this event will tag onto the tails of the International Rally run on the 30th and 31st of May. A Ceremonial Start will be held at the Town Square, Duns and then competitors can expect just over 100 miles of stages before a Ceremonial Finish/Awards Ceremony at the Town Square, Kelso. As usual, there’s a chance to recce the route on either the Sunday or Thursday before the rally with a shakedown on Friday 30th. Entries are open now at the discounted rate until Monday 12th May and finally close 1 week later on the 19th. A Rallyguide and more information on the event regulations and entry are available from the rally website – www.jimclarkrally.com