 Leeming
steers to winSSCC's Caledonia Rally
- 25 Oct 2003 – by The Maestro
When I saw the entry list my
first reaction was, “It’s a quality field, it could go to any one of
us”. I knew all the Open class competitors quite well. I knew they
were all capable of winning. So it was going to be a hard fight all
the way. Car 1 was Charlie Brown/Neil Turner in a Lupo. Car 2 was
Euan Brodie/Oly McCollum in a 205, a 1.4 as far as I know. Then Ewan
and me in the Accord Aerodeck. And at 4, John Shanks/Peter Weall in
a car that I’d maybe better not disclose in case the wrong person
may get to read this!
I didn’t see many of the
clues, because my navigator Ewan Leeming has become so adept at
solving, even on the move, that I didn’t need to offer much help.
That suited me, and it meant we could trundle along to the first
junction, saving some time in the process. Sometimes you come up
behind other cars at the first junction, all plotting away
furiously. At this point the expert’s repertoir of tricks is often
delved into. Such is the trust in other expert navigators’ abilities
that, in this circumstance, if one car moves, the rest sometimes
start to follow. This can be a risky strategy, of course, especially
where novices are involved, but experts can often benefit by
carefully selecting what information to take from other crews’
movements.
We did some of this, and
others followed us sometimes too. We nearly fell foul in one
section, though, because Ewan still had his head down trying to
plot, and I was following Euan/Oly at speed. They missed a slot, but
took the next one instead. I saw the back of a code. I didn’t
understand the full significance at this point, but when I saw it
later on the map I could see that the code was at the end of a loop.
It was less than a mile back to where we should have turned off on
to the loop, so Ewan decided we had to go back and go round it. I
thought I saw Euan/Oly turning the opposite way at the end of the
loop. I was right. It later transpired they hadn’t gone back. That
was a big mistake. There were three codes on the loop, so that was
fatal for them. Ewan was adamant he wanted to go back, and who was I
to disagree. The driver is there to do what the navigator says, and
he was right too. So we dropped 2 minutes on that section.
There had been another
section a bit earlier where we must have been close to dropping
another minute. It was a 4-minute section, and we did a w.d. at a
tee-junction. We must have been about half a mile down this brown,
when Ewan shouted, “Turn round, quick”. So it was a panic job to try
and minimise the loss. I was sure we were going down at least a
minute, but we made it. How, I know not.
It seemed as if we might be
in with a good chance, because we reckoned we only dropped those two
minutes, all being well. And we worked out that all the others had
dropped more than this. Well, so it turned out. Charlie/Neil on 8,
John/Peter on 9, and Euan/Oly on loads more.
So that’s
another win for Ewan. He also gets a “Junior” award, but we will
need to go to Renfrew to get them, probably in March, I reckon.
That was the second time I’ve
won the Caledonia. The last time was with Dave Crooke, in 98. The
same people have been running two events every year for at least
six years, to my knowledge. I don’t know where they get their
energy, but I have never seen any problems on any of them. Well
done, Ken Matier and team. I also won the Clubman class in 99, with
Colin Hastie navigating. He was seeking championship points, and he
took the class in the west championship on the strength of that win.
It makes it even more
enjoyable if the competition is close, as this was. And of course
more satisfying still when you win it. But it would have been
terrific fun regardless.
One interesting wee anecdote.
The driver of the opening car was stopped and breathalysed, so at
one point we arrived at a TC a few minutes early to see him just
leaving!
| For the benefit of
those that don’t know Ewan’s history, he did his first three
events with me, in late 99 and early 2000. He turned 19 early
this year (2003). He already has quite a pedigree, having teamed
up with all sorts of different drivers, in various types of
event, as well as Monty on a regular basis. On his one outing
with Stuart Naylor in the Early Winter in 2002 he was leading,
against crews from all over the U.K., at TC7, and was still
lying second, he believes, when they suffered a slight mishap in
Section 13, near the end of the first half. I reckon they could
have put up the best showing yet for an ESACC crew in an
Inter-Association event if they hadn’t done that. But then
rallying is full of “if only” situations, isn’t it? |
Final Results
|
1st Overall |
Derek McLean and Ewan Leeming |
2 penalties |
|
1st Expert Class |
Charles Brown and Neil Turner |
8 penalties |
|
1st Non Expert Class |
Don MacBeth and Ian Kerr |
12 penalties |
|
1st Clubman Class |
Colin Pearson and Graeme Pearson |
19 penalties |
|
1st Novice Class |
Paul Soppit and Russell Clarke |
46 penalties |
|
1st Newcomer Crew
|
Colin Pearson and Graeme Pearson |
|
|
1st Junior Navigator |
Ewan Leeming |
|
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