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Bulletin – 06/09
S G Petch ANECCC Stage Rally Championship moved north from the Lake District forests to Keilder for the Brick and Steel Border Counties Rally, resulting in a change from cold wet weather, to dry, bright and warm (for March) conditions, making dust an issue rather than misting screens.
The action started before the first stage with Richard and Edwin Cook arriving in a very strange shaped Astra, it had changed into an N10 Subaru Impreza, which had only been collected on the Thursday, and Richard only had a short run in it before the rally started. This lack of experience in the car didn’t appear to slow Richard as he was fastest through the first stage, but then dropped approximately a minute on stage 2 with a puncture. As they got more used to the car they increased their pace to pull this time back, giving them maximum points for the second time this year.
William Jarman/Mark Fisher (Escort Cosworth) made the most of the Cook’s puncture to take the lead after stage 2, but they were experiencing tyre problems themselves in the early stages, and a change to harder tyres improved this in the later stages, and they held on to 2nd place. Nick Woodman/Alex Benn (Escort MkII) had their car fixed after their off on the Malcolm Wilson, and had taken it out to play with the National A competitors on the Friday night stages. They were disappointed more competitors did not take the opportunity for a run in the forest at night, but enjoyed their run despite some patches of thick fog. They had a clean run through the Saturday stages to take 3rd place points.
4th place were Geoff Wilson/Sean O’Neil (Escort MkII) who could have been closer to Nick Woodman only they experienced an intermittent intercom on the early stages, which was only resolved by Sean using the road headset round his neck and using its microphone. John Bainbridge/Giles Dykes (Subaru Impreza) were using HANS devices for the first time, which they gradually got used to throughout the day. This was John’s 1st anniversary of his 1st rally as he made his competition debut on last years Brick and Steel Border Counties Rally. Alan Hughes/Mike Scrimgour (Escort MkII) had a clean run in their historic specification Escort to take 6th place points and 1st Historic. The Last ANECCC points finishers were Andrew Benn/Richard Cooke (Vauxhall Astra) who had the engine rebuilt following the Malcolm Wilson; they also had a good clean run to be first 1400cc car home. The only retirement was John Thorburn/James Braithwaite (Peugeot 205) who had the manifold gasket blow after the second stage.
This leaves the current championship standings as follows:-
Drivers: - Richard Cook 46 points, William Jarman 27 points, Geoff Wilson 22 points, Charlie Taylor 20 points, Des Campbell 18 points, Kev Dunn and Marcus Noble 15 points.
Co-Drivers: - Edwin Cook 44 points, Mark Fisher 27 points, Richard Cooke 25 points, Giles Dykes 23 points, Sean O’Neill 20 points, Steve Bielby 17 points, and James Braithwaite 15 points.
There is now a gap to the 4th round of the championship, the Tour of Hamsterley on the 10th May, regulations are now available on the rally website www.tourofhamsterley.co.uk.
This event was cancelled last year due to lack of entries and after discussions with competitors the following changes have been made to the format. The new date is in a less congested time of the year, the rally is based in Barnard Castle where the start, finish and service will be based, and this addresses the issue of the poor service area in Hamsterley.
The rally has moved away from being a map event with the availability of Paterson Notes. The event format is now 3 stages in Hamsterley, service in Barnard Castle, 2 stages in Stang, service in Barnard Castle, with a return to Hamsterley for a further 3 stages, this gives approximately 40 stage miles with less than 70 road miles.
This rally has not run for the last two years and if it doesn’t run this year Hamsterley will probably be lost to rallying, so the support of as many S G Petch ANECCC Stage Rally Championship contenders is required to ensure its continued availability.
After the Tour of Hamsterley, it is a shift back to tarmac for the Jim Clark Reivers Rally; regs are now available on the rally website www.jimclarkrally.com.
This is always a very popular event so get your entries in quickly to stand any chance of a start, this year it is not only is around of the Scottish Rally Championship, but also the Scottish Tarmac championship, so spaces will be in big demand.
The S G Petch ANECCC Stage Rally Championship has been asked to participate in a pilot scheme called for GoMotorsport.tv, which is a website being set up by the MSA to enable championships and clubs to upload videos of competitors/members. If and competitors have any suitable video clips, either in-car or stage side that you would like upload please contact me.
If anyone has any questions please contact.
Gordon Dundee
S G Petch ANECCC Stage Rally Championship Coordinator
Home - 0191 3773228
Mobile - 07799 140427
E-mail - gordon@dundee.fsworld.co.uk.
Posted in Bulletins on: March 23rd, 2009