![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.nerallychamp.com\/newsimages\/bulletin_11201508045527Large.jpg\")
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Sunday morning at 8 o\u2019clock and the Airstrips service area on Otterburn\u2019s military ranges held quite a tense atmosphere.\u00a0\u00a0The elements were causing some concern for drivers as the steady rain increased and so tyre choice was still a gamble.\u00a0\u00a0Some crews wandered from car to car seeing what their rival\u2019s were planning to run but in the end most crews didn\u2019t have much choice.\u00a0\u00a0They ran on the best rubber they had with them and kept their fingers crossed that they would make it safely around the opening 18 miles of competition<\/p>\n
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David Tinn was driving his usual MEM Proton Satria and is new to our championship but he had the experienced Giles Dykes to keep him on the right bits of black stuff.\u00a0\u00a0This was easier said that done in the wet opening loop and they did admit to having a few moments on the grass; they didn\u2019t lose much time though and results showed they were in a fine 3rd<\/sup>\u00a0place at halfway.\u00a0\u00a0A puncture in the afternoon dropped a little time and they eventually had to settle for 4th<\/sup>\u00a0overall.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n However, finishing just ahead of the Proton were a couple of ex champion co-drivers.\u00a0\u00a0The 2012 winner, Jack Morton was sitting alongside Damian Cole in his Fiesta R5 WRC and after a daylong battle just lost out to the rally winners by 12 seconds.\u00a0\u00a0Right behind was our 2010 champion Andrew Roughead who was guiding Alex Laffey around in his similar Ford Fiesta R5+.\u00a0\u00a0They were off the pace in the damp, morning runs and also picked up a puncture over the bridge in Quickening Cote but they still managed to finish 3rd<\/sup>\u00a0overall.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Coming home with another handy result and rounding off the top ten of the rally were Barry and Michael Lindsay.\u00a0\u00a0As ever, the Spadeadam crew showed lots of more powerful cars how it should be done with a stunning drive as they brought their little Peugeot 106 to the finish to take yet another class win.\u00a0\u00a0Barry reported rather embarrassingly that they\u2019d had yet another trouble free run, oh apart from a driver\u2019s window that wouldn\u2019t open.\u00a0\u00a0Carl Williamson finished 5 seconds behind while co-driving for the non-registered Richard Clews but over a minute clear of Nigel Feeney and Phil Sandham.\u00a0\u00a0Nigel\u2019s Subaru Impreza completed the opening loop of the day just outside the top 20 but he felt that a poor tyre choice hadn\u2019t helped his cause.\u00a0\u00a0After a change at first service, things looked up and he was much happier as he moved up to end the day in 16th<\/sup>\u00a0position.\u00a0\u00a0And taking the prize for the only crew to finish in the same position as they started, 21st<\/sup>, were Stephen and Louise Hope.\u00a0\u00a0The Coltness couple were trying out new dampers on their Ford Escort Mk2 and it was Louise\u2019s first time at Otterburn so they were delighted with their day and a good finish.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n From 25th<\/sup>\u00a0to 29th<\/sup>\u00a0overall we found 5 of our registered crews.\u00a0\u00a0First we had Stuart Walker, who\u2019s fit again after his wrestling match with a motor bike, and his only problem was a front left puncture in Riverside2;\u00a0\u00a0Barry Renwick \/ Steve Dargan were just 7 seconds adrift in the Ford Escort Mk2 \u2013 Barry admitted that he was over cautious in the wet and lost time during the morning tests but was happy that the car never missed a beat all day; the father and son pairing of David and Mathew White ended up in a lowly 27th<\/sup>\u00a0after beaching their Subaru Impreza at the first T left on stage 3. They went into the test in 10th<\/sup>\u00a0place and came out of it in 70th<\/sup>\u00a0so 8 top ten times out of 9 stages run in the remainder of the day managed to drag them up the order to 27th<\/sup>\u00a0at the finish; the Escort Maxi of Kev Monaghan and Chris Purvis were next despite the brake pedal going to the floor on the second run of Riverside, too much left foot braking didn\u2019t help his cause; Chris McCallum was 6 seconds further back and his only problem was with the starter motor on his Ford Escort Mk2 and this meant that he sometimes had to resort to a few bump starts.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Michael Farmer and Bruce Lindsay were delighted to finish in 31st<\/sup>\u00a0position and take the prize for best improvement on seeding despite trying to throw the car off the road just before the flying finish of the final stage.\u00a0\u00a0They seem to have found a good dose of reliability with their Ford Focus now and are starting to chalk up some decent results.\u00a0\u00a0Neil Thompson will probably hope that something similar is starting to happen to his Vauxhall Corsa as his was glad to finish the event.\u00a0\u00a0He had a few little issues with driveshafts but the important thing was that he finished.\u00a0\u00a0Andrew Plunkett and Paul Firth wheeled out their Subaru Impreza for the first time since last year\u2019s Tyneside Stages.\u00a0\u00a0Once they got over how they managed to go backwards over the finish of the opening test, and still be in one piece, that settled down for another steady run to claim 35th<\/sup>\u00a0at the finish.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Geoffrey Harkness and Caroline Lodge were next in the little green Vauxhall Corsa, their only problem being a vacuum pipe coming off the brake servo on SS5, this been quickly rectified at service;\u00a0\u00a0John Nicholson \/ Peter Littlefield easily won the Historic section of the event and then we have the Vauxhall Nova of Shona Hale with the non-registered James Thomson driving.\u00a0\u00a0A couple of\u00a0off-road excursions, no intercom for one stage and an engine running a bit flat were their problems of the day.\u00a0Graham Malthouse enlisted the services of brother Jeff to sit alongside him when his Dad couldn\u2019t take part.\u00a0\u00a0No issues to report with their Vauxhall Astra on the way to 47th<\/sup>\u00a0and a similar fate for Nigel Harkness and Helen Gibbon as they brought their little Corsa home in 55th<\/sup>\u00a0position.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We managed to get 20 crews home but lost a further 8 on this popular rally.\u00a0\u00a0Phil Kenny was our first retirement when the Ford Puma he was sharing (co-driving in) lost all power after 4 miles;\u00a0\u00a0Paul Ballantyne and Graham Bruce made it into stage 3 before the engine of their Renault Clio let go;\u00a0\u00a0Kevin and Jimmy Knox called it a day when the power steering pump failed dramatically in the middle of a corner on the Dudlees test and nearly dumped the Whickham crew into the scenery;\u00a0\u00a0Lee Hasting\u2019s engine starting misfiring in the same stage;\u00a0\u00a0Stephen Bethwaite\/Ann Forster retired in second service with transmission problems (teeth breaking off the planet gear);\u00a0\u00a0Ross McSkimming and Charley Sayer-Payne made it into the first afternoon loop but stopped with an electrical problem on their Citroen C2R2;\u00a0\u00a0Alan Cowan and Katie Stimpson called it a day in final service with gear selection problems in their Vauxhall Astra and Tom Middlemiss \/ Richard Stewart were our final retirements when they stopped in stage 10 after a drive shaft failed on their Corsa.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It was a challenging rally for the organisers from Alnwick and Berwick Motor Clubs as their rally became fragmented with cars going off in the slippy, morning runs.\u00a0\u00a0They stuck with it even though the time schedule slipped somewhat until they decided to cancel the final 13-mile test.\u00a0\u00a0And now there\u2019s little time for a rest as this weekend we\u2019re back in action on the Solway Coast Rally.\u00a0\u00a0Once again the Dundrennan Ranges will open up for our annual opportunity to run rally cars in competition.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n After this Saturday\u2019s rally we have a 3-week break before the penultimate round of this year\u2019s championship takes place.\u00a0\u00a0Entries for the Pendragon Stages are just like so many other rallies this year \u2013 and that means full.\u00a0\u00a0There\u2019s time for some crews to drop out with issues before the seeded entry list is published but it\u2019s great that once again our championship is running as part of some very popular rallies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sunday morning at 8 o\u2019clock and the Airstrips service area on Otterburn\u2019s military ranges held quite a tense atmosphere.\u00a0\u00a0The elements were causing some concern for drivers as the steady rain increased and so tyre choice was still a gamble.\u00a0\u00a0Some crews…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[28,14,13,8,7],"post_series":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asperformance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asperformance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asperformance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asperformance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asperformance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=824"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/asperformance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":826,"href":"https:\/\/asperformance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824\/revisions\/826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asperformance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asperformance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asperformance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=824"},{"taxonomy":"post_series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asperformance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_series?post=824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}