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The Constantines, North West Giant Killers.\u00a0 A tremendous drive by Mark and Andrew Constantine in their Vauxhall Corsa put many much more powerful cars to shame with their speed, commitment and reliability to take a fine 7th<\/sup>\u00a0overall on the\u00a0Legend Fires<\/strong>\u00a0North West Stages.\u00a0 Motor Sport (North West) once more put together a sharp sprint to be endured over 24 hours.\u00a0 Running out from Blackpool to give 100 competitors another real rallying challenge of 75 competitive miles in a compact route of 24 stages.\u00a0 And taking place over the first weekend of February, we get the wildcard of weather thrown into the melting pot too. \u00a0 This year it was soaking wet on Friday; wet again on Saturday morning with only a couple of hours of relief before it rained again on Saturday evening.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s not unusual for the short Friday night tests of the North West Stages to give a brave crew in an \u2018under powered\u2019 car a chance to get noticed after a quick run through the dark and murky conditions.\u00a0 The top crews are well aware that you won\u2019t win the rally there but you can certainly lose it.\u00a0 So this year it was the turn of a 1600cc Vauxhall Corsa crewed by Mark and Andrew Constantine who ended Friday\u2019s 4 stages in a fantastic 5th<\/sup>\u00a0overall !\u00a0 Normal service usually returns in Saturday\u2019s daylight as the 4 wheel drive supercars restore some order and the \u201cFriday Stars\u2019 slip down the timesheets.\u00a0 So although part of this process really happened, for our Northallerton crew in the little red Corsa only 2 more crews would end up higher than them after another 20 stages.\u00a0 They only had a couple of small issues to contend with in the stages as the fuel pump cut out on one test and the water splash in Weeton caused the windscreen to mist up.\u00a0 A little scare of entering the final main control with a lack of petrol couldn\u2019t take the icing off the cake either \u2026<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Although the Constantine brothers were our top finishing crew, there were a couple of registered co-drivers partnered up with non-registered drivers just ahead of them.\u00a0 Firstly it was Andrew Falconer sitting alongside Tristan Pye in his Subaru Impreza taking 4th<\/sup>\u00a0overall while in 6th<\/sup>\u00a0place was Andrew Roughead with Andy Fenwick.\u00a0 For both drivers it was their first attempt at this particular rally and for Andy it was the debut of his recently acquired Proton Satria.\u00a0 No problems reported as there were no real heroics on this difficult rally.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Finishing in 8th<\/sup>\u00a0overall were Lee Hastings and Julie McGuire in their \u2018older\u2019 Subaru Impreza.\u00a0 The Scots crew didn\u2019t have a very good Friday run when the turbo expired and they would enter parc ferme in 28th<\/sup>\u00a0spot.\u00a0 Once this was sorted out at first service, they got their heads down and with 14 top five fastest times made some real progress up the leaderboard to go into the final test, 5.6 miles of Weeton, in 5th<\/sup>\u00a0overall.\u00a0 Then it all fell apart as the car ground to a halt just three corner from the flying finish.\u00a0 Lee frantically fiddled with lots of wires in the darkness for what seemed like ages before the car fired up again and they made it back to the Norbreck.\u00a0 The clocks might have been generous to Lee as he was only penalised the stage maximum of 11 minutes and thereby losing 3 minutes but also 3 places too.\u00a0 If he\u2019d been offered a top 10 finish on the Saturday morning, he\u2019d have gladly accepted it but in the darkness of the final IN control, the frustrations of what might have been were very much to the fore.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A new father and son combination to our championship this year are Nigel and Callum Atkinson.\u00a0 Running a very tidy Mitsubishi Evo9, the Border Ecosse MC crew had a relatively trouble free rally with only a big spin in Weeton to slow their progress.\u00a0 Starting from a rather lowly number 56 they pushed on to record a fine 12th<\/sup>\u00a0overall finish.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Next up in 17th<\/sup>\u00a0place were the West Cumbria crew of Stephen Bethwaite and Ann Forster.\u00a0 They\u2019ve contested the event five times already but this one would see their best result yet.\u00a0 A pretty quick run on\u00a0Friday night and they found themselves restarting on Saturday morning in 21st<\/sup>\u00a0position, very pleasing for car 61.\u00a0 This meant that they were running in front of some fast recovering ex WRC machinery which gave them a few\u00a0moments over the Weeton tests looking in mirrors as well as through a windscreen.\u00a0 Their only mechanical concerns were losing a bit of the rear section of exhaust pipe and over the last 4 stages when a worrying knock developed on the front suspension.\u00a0 A just reward was a great class win for their 1400cc Vauxhall Nova.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Northallerton duo of Alistair Hutchinson and St John Dykes were reunited again for this event and also with little CUB.\u00a0 Tango\u2019s stable mate, the blue and yellow Renault Clio, suffered in the arduous conditions that kept the service boys busy repairing the gearbox mountings, twice, the alternator, a bent rear beam and a clutch problem that meant the final 4 stages were attempted with about 50% throttle before the clutch started slipping.\u00a0 And yet they were still smiling at the final control.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Kevin Mathers and Craig Forsyth were one of only two crews who were brave enough to play their Jokers on what can be a very unpredictable event.\u00a0 The gamble worked out as their near standard Peugeot 205 ran faultlessly with only a few overshoots to lose some time on both Friday and Saturday.\u00a0 30th<\/sup>\u00a0overall and 2nd<\/sup>\u00a0class points were the rewards for the boys from Hawick.\u00a0 Finishing right behind was James Thomson who\u2019d managed to get his wee Nova\u2019s engine put back together after the dramas at Knockhill a month earlier and make the start of the North West.\u00a0 The event was going well until his Achilles Heel of the Vauxhall gearbox struck him low once more.\u00a0 Fortunately it wasn\u2019t terminal this time but it did mean he had to move from 1st<\/sup>\u00a0into 3rd<\/sup>gear when going up the box.\u00a0 Then pushing too hard at Weeton\u2019s water splash for the last time the\u00a0car ground to a halt and was not very keen on firing up again.\u00a0 Luckily the battery had just enough life to restart but talk about nearly throwing it all away at the death \u2026<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Peugeot 106 of Bill and Kari Bates had a quiet rally until the final stage gremlins struck and the front offside tyre deflated.\u00a0 The offending item didn\u2019t pop off the rim so it was quicker to drive slowly out of the test rather than stop and change it in the darkness.\u00a0 They were classified as 39th<\/sup>\u00a0at the end of the day.\u00a0 Kari\u2019s \u2018other half\u2019, Bruce Lindsay, was co-driving for an unregistered chap in a Vauxhall Astra and things were moving along very steadily until late Saturday afternoon.\u00a0 Halfway around the Fleetwood Promenade stage for the fourth and final time, the driver decide to go left at the split junction while Bruce wanted to go right.\u00a0 A stage maximum awarded.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Drew Barker \/ Shona Hale were next up in their wee tartan Corsa.\u00a0 Saturday\u2019s only downside was\u00a0skelping ( or hitting hard in native tongue ) a concrete block on the Fleetwood Docks morning run whilst passing another car.\u00a0 The resultant impact damaged the wheel and punctured the tyre. \u00a0 A tactical move of then using wet tyres seemed to do a job of not only giving better traction but also passing other cars on stage.\u00a0 The summary quote from Shona was \u201can adventurous rally for Team DB UNO and still thoroughly enjoyable.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Our final classified finisher was Barry Renwick in his Proton Millington.\u00a0 It was the first time for Barry attempting the rally and something he\u2019ll not forget in a hurry. \u00a0Things started to go wrong on the Friday morning when regular co-driver Steve Dargan was forced to miss the event and Barry rang Jane Nicol who was actually at work but able to step up at short, or even no notice.\u00a0 The car then \u2018died\u2019 on the start line of SS1 and had to be pushed out of the way. \u00a0 The battery issue was sorted out in service and they were allowed to restart on Saturday morning under SuperRally rules but with over 42 minutes of penalties while the rally leader had a mere 10 minutes.\u00a0 Problems with snapped shafts in the first four stages at Fleetwood didn\u2019t help and some progress only really started happening on Saturday afternoon and evening.\u00a0 A character building experience for Barry and Jane but perseverance rewarded Barry with 7 points for finishing last registered contender.\u00a0 That may just be a useful number come the end of the year and championships are decided.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We have to report that there were 7 crews that never made it to the end of this tough little rally and the first to drop out was the event sponsor John Stone.\u00a0 Although he won the rally in 2004 he\u2019s suffered quite a few retirements since then and in 2016 it was an alternator problem that put him out after the first stage; Tim Finch and Terry Martin stopped in the same Lytham stage with a clutch problem.\u00a0 They were credited with huge time losses for the 4 Friday stages but allowed to restart on Saturday under SuperRally rules \u2013 unfortunately they stopped in the first test again with clutch problems; Jack Morton sitting alongside the non-registered Tom Preston in his Ford Focus also retired after the first Fleetwood tests with clutch problems; Robert Iveson snapped a driveshaft on his Ford Ka in SS6; and then it was on to the first pair of Weeton stages that claimed 3 crews \u2013 the first being Mat Smith when his Proton stopped with a gearbox issue in SS9 before David and Mathew White\u2019s Subaru Impreza, which was lying in 12th<\/sup>\u00a0overall at the time, stopped after the finish line with what the driver describes as \u201cthe engine giving up the ghost\u201d.\u00a0 Perhaps that might come from attacking the watersplash with plenty of commitment just like Barrie Thomson \/ Jerry Hettrick as they too were parked up after the finish having just thrown an alternator belt in the test.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Once again we offer our thanks to Motor Sport (North West) Ltd and Dave Read in particular for all their efforts in putting together another cracking event.\u00a0 As ever, the weather wasn\u2019t too kind to us but the organisation and facilities at the Norbreck more than make up for this.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n There\u2019s a short break now of almost 8 weeks as we all try to catch our breath after yet another hectic start to our championship year.\u00a0 Round 4 will be our first foot into Scotland this year when we head to the DCC Stages.\u00a0 As is customary, this rally will be taking place on a Saturday \u2013 this time it\u2019s April 2nd<\/sup>.\u00a0 Once again Dunfermline Car Club will be utilising the roads of the old Ingliston racetrack and now Royal Highland Showground.\u00a0 In recent years they\u2019ve managed about 45 competitive miles in 8 stages so we can probably expect a similar offering this time around.\u00a0 The organisers are proposing to publish the Supplementary Regulations for the rally on the 21st February with the online entry system going live on the 28th February.\u00a0 Last year the entry list filled up within hours and there\u2019s no reason to expect this year will be any different.\u00a0 Anyone planning on doing the event should be making the entry application their priority on Sunday 28th<\/sup>.\u00a0 There\u2019ll be more at the event website ofhttp:\/\/dunfermlinecarclub.co.uk\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Constantines, North West Giant Killers.\u00a0 A tremendous drive by Mark and Andrew Constantine in their Vauxhall Corsa put many much more powerful cars to shame with their speed, commitment and reliability to take a fine 7th\u00a0overall on the\u00a0Legend Fires\u00a0North…<\/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":[28,14,35,13,8,34,7],"post_series":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asperformance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882"}],"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=882"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/asperformance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":887,"href":"https:\/\/asperformance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882\/revisions\/887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asperformance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asperformance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asperformance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=882"},{"taxonomy":"post_series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asperformance.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_series?post=882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}