NETRC Christmas Stages results 2014
Swift takes another victory. And although that may sound like just another win, Paul Swift was made to work hard for his score on the opening rally of our 2014 championship.
Rally morning started in traditional Christmas Stages fashion in the pitch dark with scrutineering / documentation but by the time the lights turned green just after quarter past nine, the sun was quite low in a full blue sky. A cold wind ran across the service area to keep temperatures down to 6o C and remind us it was still December.
The dry, shiny tarmac of Croft’s best racing track didn’t look too much of a problem but Swift suffered a couple of small spins and a coming together with a slower car over the opening 6 miles to stop the clocks 7th fastest. A poor time on the 3rd stage saw Swift drop behind Alan Oldfield in his Darrian T90 GTR and at lunch the Ford Escort was 14 seconds behind the Darrian. The next 2 reversed afternoon tests saw Swift regain 10 to go into the last 12 miles of darkness with only 4 seconds adrift. Although, Oldfield and Ken Bills suffered no problems to speak of, they couldn’t hold onto the flying Escort. Swift, who was partnered by David Cox, felt SS7 wasn’t too good as they were having difficulty picking their apexes in the changed conditions. But they didn’t realise that they’d recovered 18 seconds over Oldfield and on the final test they took another 36 to end up a comfortable 50 to the good. Another good day’s work for the professional driver but his was pushed hard and the Darrian driver from York sent out the message that he will keep our 2012 champion honest in the current campaign.
Finishing in 3rd championship place was Craig Pennington and Michael Calvert. The garage owner from West Yorkshire was his usual quick and purposeful self and quietly got on with the job in hand of being on the fringes of the top 10 all day. His style belies the speed he takes his Mitsubishi Evo9 around Croft with only a spin on stage 7 to slow him slightly on his way to 11th overall.
And a further 7 seconds behind after 49 miles were our current champions Barry and Michael Lindsay. Their Peugeot 106 looked on the limit all day when up against so many more powerful competitors, but the Spadeadam crew rose to the challenge and scooped another class win into the bargain. Barry’s only concern was about a noisy gearbox but it didn’t slow his progress. In fact he started the last 2 tests run in the dark with a gap of 48 seconds to Craig Pennington and yet took 41 back to end up a mere 7 adrift.
A gusty and reliable performance would see Ed Todd and Andy Brown bring their GTM Coupe home in 18th place. The Durham crew suffered in the morning runs with braking issues and ‘driving like a girl’ as the driver put it to find themselves down in 25th at halfway. Driving with more confidence in the afternoon, the little, red rocket steadily made progress up the times to record a fine 5th championship result.
Next up were the pretty little Honda Civic of Nick Thorne and Ian Murray. This was their first visit to Croft and a cautious start would find them down in 32nd after the opening test. Every stage thereafter would see their pace increase and they gained more places to end in 21st. They felt that could have been higher if they’d been able to see better in the last 2 dark stages, yet they still gained 3 places despite their lack of assurance.
Neil Marshall / Mike Scrimgour from Whitby were very happy to finish in 30th place. After the first stage they found themselves down in 60th position but they steadily worked their way up the timesheets to get the 1900 Peugeot 205 to the final control – something Neil’s not managed for over 9 months.
The Subaru Impreza of Neil Raven and Ann Forster finished right behind in 31st place. This could have been a lot better as they were lying in 18th at halfway. But it wasn’t to be as they lost 90 seconds on the penultimate test due to a rear tyre rubbing against the bodywork. However as they were one of the few crews to play their ‘Joker’ on the rally, they actually stand at the top of their respective tables after the opening round.
Geoffrey Harkness and Caroline Lodge got off to a bad start at scrutineering when the extinguisher cable snapped. A new one fitted and they then had another of their consistent days when not much exciting happened on the stages as they made the way to 33rd overall.
And right behind we had Darren Wilcox with Terry Martin sitting alongside him in his Subaru Impreza. Darren recorded a couple of poor times before admitting that things would have been better had it not been for losing time doing some ‘grasstracking’
Alan Cowan enlisted the services of Shona Hale, and her service crew, for the rally. The Scots were happy having a reliable run and were still beaming at the finish. “Great fun catching Evos in the dark’ sums up the driver’s attitude.
The Peugeot 106 of Joe Cunningham and Glen Coates ended up in a lowly 43rd place when a top 20 finish was possible. The target all day was to hang onto the coattails of our current champion in a similar specification car. And they wouldn’t have been that far away if they hadn’t had to take a stage maximum on SS4 when a driveshaft let go. The loss of 4 minutes saw them plummet down to 67th overall. The chance of a good result was gone but they still pushed on in the afternoon to try and recover some decency.
A Mini Cooper was next. A different car not seen on events very often and a different man in the driver’s seat too – Andrew Roughead. He’s usually found in the silly seat keeping drivers right but when the chance came to drive his Dad’s road rally prepared version, it was too good an opportunity to miss. He enlisted Dan May to sit alongside him and they spent most of the day fine tuning the suspension to get a better performance out of a pretty standard car. They must have been doing something right as they moved up the leaderboard every stage from 61st to 48th at the finish.
The father and daughter pairing of Bill and Katy Bates were next in their 1400 Peugeot 106. A visit to the gravel trap on the opening lap was a quick wake up call as they found themselves in 73rd place but steady driving found them end up in 57th position.
The Toyota Yaris of Colin Butler and Giles Dykes were next flinging the little 1 litre powered car around the stages with great vim. They were never going to set super times in the dry conditions but they sure had plenty of fun on the way.
Our final finishers were a Dad and Lad combination of Jimmy Knox and Alistair Knox. Their Peugeot was having a pretty reliable mechanical run but they were awarded stage maximums for taking incorrect routes.
As for the ones that got away, well the first to drop out was Andrew Fawcett and Chris Purvis when their Nova’s nearside driveshaft flange let go half way around the opening test; Jon and Alison Trenholme who had a re-occurrence of their turbo related problems and stopped in the second run; Joseph Redmond and Luke Campbell were up to 24th after the first loop of stages before they were excluded for not carrying a spare wheel; Stuart Walker / Julie McGuire made it to the lunch halt before retiring with a snapped shaft in the front transfer box (they’d already had a blown turbo on the second stage) and finally Mark and John Burton called it a day after the first afternoon run when the clutch blew on their Vauxhall Nova.
The second round of our championship is the Jack Frost Stages in association with AUTOGAS 2000 and Cartersport. This is scheduled for Sunday January 19th and once again it will also be based at race circuit just outside Croft village. Entries haven’t been made at the same pace as the Christmas Stages with almost 40 entries received at the time of writing. If anyone is considering doing the rally, then you will need to get your entry in by Wednesday 8th January for this one and as usual the organisers are promising not to bank any cheques until Friday 3rd of January. The link for the rally is http://www.darlington-motor-club.org.uk/datafiles/downloadfiles/Jack_Frost_Regs_2014_2_1.pdf
As mentioned in our previous bulletin, the Legend Fires North West Stages will be the third round of the championship. Although the rally doesn’t take place until 7th and 8th February and the Regulations were released in early December, the organisers received almost 100 entries with 3 days. The rally is once again based at the fantastic Norbreck Castle Hotel complex and anyone interested in competing should take a look at the official rally website – http://www.nwstages.co.uk/