ASP / NETRC 2015 Champion Announced
Following the recent news that the Ford Parts Cheviot Keith Knox Stages Rally has been cancelled and also the fact that our provisional results after the Solway Coast Rally have now become final, the arithmetic tells us that Nigel Feeney is now unbeatable. The man from Monkton has amassed too many points for his rivals to make up ground on him on the final qualifying round. It’ll be good to have another new name on our winning driver’s cup as the pilot of the red Subaru Impreza has proved too quick for the opposition this year. Congratulations go to Nigel on his return to the sport this year as he reaps the rewards of his concentrated efforts to take our championship. Even as the dust was settling in Dundrennan he talked about the possibilities for himself and his opponents during the run into the final furlong of our competition. Little would we realise that just days later it would be all academic when with another top score under his belt and the cancellation of the Cheviot, he was now uncatchable.
Barry Renwick is Nigel’s nearest rival but is 20 points adrift and with only a maximum of 16 available, the gap is too great. However, Barry isn’t safely classified as a top 3 man yet as anyone of the next 3 drivers, or indeed all 3 – Stuart Walker, David White and Lee Hastings – could overtake him should the scores fall the right (or wrong) way on the Pendragon Stages.
The situation across in the co-driver’s section is a much different tale. Steve Dargan currently heads Shona Hale, Andrew Roughead and Julie McGuire with 13 points covering all 4 of them; but once again depending on how the results end up, anyone of these 4 could take the title. All of these contenders have played their Jokers so can only score a maximum of 16 points but the one really outside chance lies with Phil Sandham who hasn’t tried to double his points score yet. He’s way back in 6th place going into our final event and would need an awful lot of luck to come away as champion … but never say never.
There are a couple of classes that appear to be finalised but the class 3, 4 and 5 victors could be only decided once our final podium is sorted out. So there’s still a lot to play for on the Warcop Ranges come the 30th of August.