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There was a different feeling around the Girdstingwood complex this weekend for crews were bathed in warm, summer sunshine as they mingled for the 8:30 driver\u2019s briefing.\u00a0 It might have been 6 days on from a wet and miserable Otterburn ranges where the Tyneside Stages were based but a move to southwest Scotland\u2019s Dundrennan ranges also proved to be a bonus with improved weather for the Solway Coast Rally.\u00a0 It was a good start to the day and although the close proximity of the Irish Sea meant clouds would be continuously blown on shore, an overcast and cloudy afternoon was just a few hours away but at least it stayed dry.<\/p>\n
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\u00a0The Subaru Impreza of Feeney and Phil Sandham were once again the dominant force amongst our championship contenders as they racked up another haul of points \u2013 in Nigel\u2019s case that\u2019s 4 maximum scores on the last 5 rallies.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t an easy run around\u00a0the stages at Dundrennan as this was Nigel\u2019s first time at the venue although Phil did contest the Junior rally run there 12 months earlier.\u00a0 Nigel admitted to having a great day despite the red mist coming down from the off when in the opening 3 tests he suffered 3 overshoots and found himself reversing back onto the track.\u00a0 It was probably over enthusiasm on unfamiliar notes for some very technical stages but once out of his system, the East Ayrshire man settled into a good rhythm for the rest of the event.\u00a0 And 4th<\/sup>\u00a0overall was his prize as he continues his quest to become our champion driver this year.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0The final results showed that Nigel had a comfortable 42 seconds in hand over our next challenger \u2013 Lee Hastings \u2013 but it wasn\u2019t as plain sailing as it sounds.\u00a0 Lee is the local man with experience of these ranges and it was always \u2018nip and tuck\u2019 to be within a few seconds of Nigel\u2019s times in the morning until his new co-driver had a \u201cblonde moment\u201d and booked the crew into a control 1 minute early.\u00a0 The minute penalty dropped the older Subaru down the score sheets into 3rd<\/sup>\u00a0at halfway as Stuart Baillie sat just 10 seconds behind Feeney and Hastings a further 48 seconds adrift.\u00a0 During the 3 afternoon runs, Baillie\u2019s efforts ended with the Subaru off the road yet Hastings picked up more pace.\u00a0 His Impreza ran perfectly all day and he would have beaten Feeney on stage times alone but it was not to be for overall honours.\u00a0 However having played his Joker on his home event though, he moves up our championship table to become 5th<\/sup>\u00a0overall driver.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0Next points scorer was David Crosbie who was sitting in with the non registered Stephen Thompson.\u00a0 They had a day long battle with the rally\u2019s class winners but lost about 30 seconds just 200 metres before the end of the final stage when their Ford Escort slid wide on some gravel.\u00a0 Barry Renwick was next up with Steve Dargan as usual in the left hand seat of their VW Polo.\u00a0 A change of car from their Ford Escort and a change of venue too as neither of the crew had visited this part of the world before.\u00a0 They found the notes and stages tricky with several grassy moments to recall and counted themselves lucky to come out of a final stage that proved very slippy.\u00a0 A straight on moment at a tightening R7 found them off the road and with tree branches covering the bonnet.\u00a0 Fortunately, they were able to reverse back onto the stage and get back onto the road for another good points finish.\u00a0 It was also a good day for the car as it was reliable and the service time was simply down to refuel and a spanner check.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0Drew Barker and Shona Hale were our next finishers as they brought home their wee tartan liveried Vauxhall Corsa home in 39th<\/sup>place overall.\u00a0 They lost the\u00a0rear silencer on the third stage and initially they felt that they might be out of the rally.\u00a0 But they soldered on even though Drew couldn\u2019t hear Shona calling her notes through the intercom because of all the extra exhaust noise.\u00a0 By the time they arrived at the final main control in, Shona\u2019s voice was all but gone but more valuable points were picked up.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0Jane Nicol was relived to get to the finish after 2 retirements in 2 outings this year.\u00a0 She was called up to sit alongside the non-registered James Gibb and a steady run almost ended in the final loop when the turbo failed on the Subaru Impreza.\u00a0 The time loss was probably in the region of 6 minutes but they still managed to get to the end.\u00a0 Kevin Mathers brought his pretty standard Peugeot 205 home to yet another finish.\u00a0 This was his first rally using pace notes, which didn\u2019t arrive in the post and were collected at signing on, so the youngster from Hawick felt the rally was a big learning exercise for him.\u00a0 Apart from ending up in the grass after the R3 over yump on the Netherlaw stage, he felt it had been a good day.\u00a0 The final stage almost proved to be the sting in the tail as it was so slippy and very easy to fall off the road, but he came through that one still smiling.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0Our final finishers were the Dad and Daughter combination of Bill and Kari Bates.\u00a0 They were yet another crew tackling the rally for their first time and admitted that they were a little too cautious at times.\u00a0 And just when they felt they could push on in the final pair of tests, they found the gravel and slippy roads made getting around some corners more difficult.\u00a0 A couple of small offs were their rewards but these didn\u2019t cause any damage and they only lost more time.\u00a0 The Peugeot 106 ran reliably all day and the Ripon MC crew really enjoyed their day\u2019s motorsport.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0We only recorded 4 retirements on the event and Michael Farmer \/ Bruce Lindsay were the first to leave the fray when their Ford Focus snapped a valve less than a mile into the opening stage; Stuart Walker made it into SS2 before a sweeping section of bends turned into a square right and he was caught out as he only began his retardation process several yards after his braking point.\u00a0 He locked up going straight on into the box section and yet was selecting reverse gear while still moving forward.\u00a0 This helped him to quickly get back on the right route.\u00a0 Unfortunately his Skoda Fabia\u2019s gearbox started making unusual noises after these manoeuvres so he felt he\u2019d best stop before things started getting expensive to repair; further on in the same stage Chris McCallum\u2019s run came to a halt when a rod ventilated the block of his Ford Escort\u2019s motor and our final retirees where Stuart Baillie and Ian Crosbie.\u00a0 The day leading up to the event tested Stuart as his suspension proved difficult to get back onto the car and then his service barge didn\u2019t want to start.\u00a0 After the opening pair of stages with no intercom, he upped his pace and at final service was just 10 seconds away from our leader. \u00a0 The penultimate stage caught him out on a very fast section about 2 miles from the start as he approached a R8 with too much speed and took to the grass on the outside of the corner.\u00a0 Before he knew anymore the green Subaru was launched into the bushes on the other side of the road and with no spectators around it was game over.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0Special thanks go to Michael Riddick and all his team at Solway Car Club for another well run little event.\u00a0 Although the time schedule may have slipped a little as the day progressed, most competitors enjoyed their day\u2019s rallying.\u00a0 There\u2019s a couple of weeks break now until the Bank Holiday weekend when we have our penultimate rally of the year \u2013 the Pendragon Stages.\u00a0 The entries for the event have been full for a while now but we\u2019ll wait and see who\u2019s on the seeded entry list when it appears later this month.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0And finally for now, the Regulations and entries are now available for the last round of our championship, the Cheviot Keith Knox Stages Rally supported by\u00a0Ford Parts<\/strong>\u00a0 The format for this year\u2019s event is\u00a09 stages of approximately 80 tarmac miles over the Otterburn Ranges linked by 60 road miles. As ever, a recce will take place on the Saturday prior to the main event on Sunday 4th<\/sup>October.\u00a0 That means the rally will run over a full month earlier that last year so hopefully we can look forward to better weather conditions for this time around at the Airstrips.\u00a0 For more information, go to the event website www.cheviotstages.org.uk\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There was a different feeling around the Girdstingwood complex this weekend for crews were bathed in warm, summer sunshine as they mingled for the 8:30 driver\u2019s briefing.\u00a0 It might have been 6 days on from a wet and miserable Otterburn…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[28,14,13,8,7],"post_series":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asperformance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827"}],"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=827"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/asperformance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":829,"href":"https:\/\/asperformance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827\/revisions\/829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asperformance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asperformance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asperformance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=827"},{"taxonomy":"post_series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asperformance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_series?post=827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}