Stage Snippets

Winners of round one in Bournemouth, Craig Middleton and Robin Hernaman were left at a distinct advantage when they arrived in Jedburgh without any suitable snow tyres. Without the massed support of the likes of Pirelli and Dunlop, the Matador pairing struggled on the snowy stages but acquitted themselves more favourably on the ones with less of a covering until sliding off into a ditch on SS5, which ultimately led to their retirement. “The spectators did a great job in getting us back on the road” said co driver Hernaman afterwards.

2004 ANCRO Champion Steve Perez was out with new co-driver Steve Harris for the first time on a recent MSA Gravel Championship event. They are not strangers to each other by any manner of means as the pair contested the 2005 Roger Albert Clark Rally in the Lancia Stratos, and Steve used to sit with Perez at the start of his driving career. Also, they were using the older Ford Focus WRC as Perez’ new ex Dani Sola 05 version was en route to Spain for Rallye Catalunya. Harris was co-driver to Brendan Crealey for much of the 2005 season until the Ulsterman quit.

Another co-driver finding a new seat was former ANCRO class front runner Kirsty Riddick who was planning on sitting next to Kevin Ross until the Scotsman was forced to pull his entry late in the week. A call to arms from Peugeot 206 contender Colin Britton saw the pair beat the opposition to record a class victory in the 2006 Total Motorsport Solutions Cup.

There was a sad end to a reasonably successful day for Roger Duckworth’s crew. The chase vehicle towing Roger’s car back home to the Midlands after the event was involved in a collision with a car in some road works just south of Jedburgh, damaging the front of the vehicle.

The Pit Lane Productions crew of Andrew Marriott and Caroline Samuels were sadly absent from the Border Counties Rally due to budget restrictions. Hopefully, the situation will be resolved in time for the next round of the championship, the RBS International Manx Rally in May but in the mean time, Alistair Miller and his crew filmed much of the action for Sky TV.

Other absentees were 2005 champions Paul Bird and Ian Windress who decided to miss the event following problems with their Derek McGarrity-run Subaru Impreza WRC. The gearbox problems which thwarted their bid on Rally Sunseeker re-emerged on the previous week’s Malcolm Wilson Rally and in addition, Bird was keeping his eye on his Superbike team who were testing in Spain that same weekend. Bird plans to visit Prodrive prior to the Manx Rally as he has his eyes on an S11 model for his favoured tarmac where he plans to return to the series.

Two prominent ex bike racers were contesting the Scottish Championship element of the Border Counties Rally. TT winner and former works Honda rider Ian Simpson was sat beside former British Supersport Championship rider Ian Campbell in their MSR Motorsport-prepared Mitsubishi Lancer whereby the pair finished fourth overall. Good to see they’d both blagged a pair of Alister McRae’s old WV overalls in keeping with the yellow theme...

Only one member of the McKinstry family was in action in Kielder and that was Emma who had ‘Pacenotes’ journalist Simon Mooney again on the maps. Dad Kenny was hoping to do as many rounds as possible as his daughter but instead was in Cork as he’d hired out one of his cars

Stephen Petch is hoping to have his own Group N car available for the Manx after another outing in the hired Mellors Elliott Mitsubishi. Petch was also hoping to contest last weekend’s Malcolm Wilson Rally in recently-retired dad’s Hyundai Accent but he was refused an entry! “Well we did leave it rather late and they told us there were already 25 reserves!” said the Yorkshireman.

 

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