The weekend of the 9th, 10th and 11th of October saw the running of the Tour of Mull. The Blackburn based 2300 Club was celebrating its 40th year of running the closed road event that started back in 1969.

The Isle of Mull on the west coast of Scotland has some of the most demanding roads in the UK for the 160 crews to test themselves and their cars over 145 miles of twisting and turning roads.

To mark the 40th anniversary the rally would be opened with two blasts round the town of Tobermory before the rally is plunged in to the dark on the lanes of Mull.

Talk before the event was all about the weather (no change there then!) and was the first leg going to be greeted by heavy rain, snow or just normal rain! The resurfacing on a number of roads around the island was also raising some eyebrows.

As Friday night came the crews where lead across the ramp in the rain by last year’s winner Paul MacKinnon in his Subaru Impreza and so the Tour of Mull was underway.

After the two runs around Tobermory a theme was appearing as all of the crews emerged uttering words like “Slippy as hell” and “No grip!!” well what do you expect on Mull!

Over the two stages Neil MacKinnon recorded the fastest time of 52 seconds laying down the gauntlet to show the younger crews that he still has what is needed to win on Mull.

The following stages of three and four were in a new format where they both started half way up the Glen Aros road, but on the first run the competitors would turn right and run competitive through Dervaig village and back to Tobermory along the Mishnish Lochs road and on the second run would turn left and run round Calgary Bay.

But rather than remembered for the new format, stage four was to mark the end for the Kenny McKinstry run Impreza of Neil MacKinnon.

It left the road shortly after the start at high speed and left both driver and navigator unconscious and needing hospital treatment. Both were eventually released after being detained for observations.

This passed the reigns over to the younger MacKinnon and he showed composure in recording fastest times on 4 of the next 5 stages and opening up nearly a minute over the chasing Evo of Dougi and Sam Hall.

A puncture over the Lochs had dented the charge of Callum and Del Duffy leaving them down in 25th after stage three, but who would not bet on that improving over the weekend!

Another Escort the immaculate Ralloy MKII of James MacGillivray and Ian Fraser rounded of the podium positions. With a string of top 10 times the Escort was constantly surprising the 4WD cars with its speed in conditions which should favour the later, wet, windy, horrible…..

Saturday brought brighter weather and daylight for the shorter loop around the top of the island, but there was no let up at the front with the pace still at break neck speed.

The main news was that Paul MacKinnon was out, the Tobermory driver hit problems on the run round Calgary Bay and through some confusion while re-joining the road nearly took out his main rivals the Duffy brothers! “I got hit by Paul MacKinnon,” Calum said, “Paul had gone off and was reversing out helped by Marshals.

They were telling him when it was safe but whatever happened he started coming out just as we were going past. We were lucky, he hit the tail of the car but missed the wheel, otherwise we might have got mechanical damage as well.”

This lead to Dougi Hall taking over the lead but Duffy was closing in with just over 30 seconds between them. John Cope and Rob Fagg in the WRC Subaru Impreza and the Mini of Daniel Harper and Chris Cambell had overhauled the MkII of MacGillivray pushing the local in to fifth place.

Other notable names all fighting hard, Tony Bardy in the Nissan GTiR had steering problems after fitting a new rack and reverted to the old one to get the feeling back.

Denis Biggerstaff in his WRC Impreza was trying to gain places after hitting a rock the night before forcing him to stop and change a wheel. And former Tour winner Andy Knight in his 1400 Nova showing he still has the skills needed to tame Mull, pushing the little car in to the top 20 above more powerful machinery.

As the dark once again engulfed the island the crews readied themselves for the last push to the finish. The first stage of the Friday night section was the 23 mile Tuath/Calgary stage, this monster stage has decided many a previous tour and this year was a similar story. With the evenings Gribun stage cancelled due to a safety issue the available mileage to mount a challenge was reduced.

As Dougi Hall launched in to the stage thoughts of so many past disasters on the last night must have been in his mind for possibly the unluckiest competitor on the Tour of Mull, was this to be his year? Could he keep the charging Escort of Duffy at Bay? The next 23 miles would reveal all.

As the cars appeared from the dark the leader board had changed again. Calum and Del Duffy had moved in to the lead after the Evo of Dougi Hall suffered a puncture and then another on the following stage dropping them down the leader board.

This also moved MacGillivray up in to second and Cope in to third, but with only 3 seconds to the Mini of Harper this was to be the last change in the top five. The last stage of the night saw Harper move in to third ahead of the WRC powered Impreza of Cope.

Just outside the top 5 Tristan Pye and Andrew Falconer in their new shape GpN Impreza improved on his best result to finish 6th and a storming drive by the Oban driver Shaun Sinclair in his Evo9 in 7th marked his improvement on the event.

Class wins went to Andy Knight and Drew Sturrock in the 1400 Nova, Iain MacKenzie and Angus Mackenzie in the Peugeot 106 took the 1600 class and Doug Weir and Duncan Brown took class C honours in their MkII Escort.

So the 40th anniversary had another connection with the past, the top three finishers on one of the toughest and wettest tours for many a year were all powered by 2WD cars !! And once again an MkII Escort wins an event that it really shouldn’t. But there again many things happen on Mull that you won’t see anywhere else in the world!

Tour of Mull Results
1   Calum Duffy/Iain Duffy                 Ford Escort MkII                  2 Hr 09 Mins 25 Secs
2   James MacGillivray/Ian Fraser     Ford Escort MkII                  2h 10m 30s
3   Daniel Harper/Chris Campbell      MINI                                     2h 11m 05s
4   John Cope/Rob Fagg                   Subaru Impreza                    2h 11m 18s
5   Tony Bardy Bardy/Reg Smith       Nissan Sunny GTI R            2h 11m 38s
6   Tristan Pye/Andrew Falconer       Subaru Impreza                    2h 12m 50s
7   Shaun Sinclair/Chris Hamill          Mitsubishi Lancer EVO9       2h 14m 31s
8   Dougi Hall/Sam Hall                     Mitsubishi Lancer EVO9       2h 14m 58s
9   Wayne Sisson/Daniel Stone         Mitsubishi Lancer EVO9       2h 15m 39s
10 Tugs Sherrington/Sam Bould        Mitsubishi Lancer EVO4       2h 15m 49s