|
 There we were flat in 5th when all of a sudden…….Oh no that's Stevie's report
Our report is more along the line of "and for our next dance we have Doug and Duncan performing a rally car waltz with a bit of rock thrown in but fortunately no roll"
The week leading up to the rally was nice and relaxing, fairly decent weather some walking out in the beautiful Mull countryside, a wee check of the roads and catching up with friends. All very civilised, there was even romance in the air for birthday boy Chris!! (30 this week?)
The tension started to rise on the Thursday before with some drama as one of the trailers turned up on three wheels, luckily we borrowed a 4th one from Calum Mackenzie for the trip home.
Up early on Friday morning for scrutineering but the weather was horrible, rain and low cloud. The car must have been feeling miserable too as it wouldn't start, probably knew what was going to happen to it over the next three days. Traced it to oiled up plugs so after quick plug swap it was off to scrutineering.
No problems there, other than the surprise seeing all the scrut's dressed in kilts, heard later it had been some sort of strange bet made in the pub and because it was the 40th tour. I spent most of the rest of the day watching the weather forecast on the internet as the promised rain didn't seem to be falling as heavy as predicted.
Friday night
 The first couple of stages were a quick blast round the harbour and up through Tobermory, by now the rain had arrived making it more of a challenge to keep the Escort pointing forwards through the chicanes around the clock and past the bank than trying to set the streets alight.
Next up was a new stage starting half way up the super fast Glen Aros turning right in the village of Dervaig, up past the Bellachroy hotel and over the Mishnish lochs stage back to Tobermory.
Duncan asked if I'd seen anyone at the pub as we passed but I could hardly see the road due to rain, and bad reflections from the signposts from my new HID spot lights so answer was no. Our stage time wasn't stunning but I've plenty excuses!
Next up was starting in the same place but turn left in Dervaig and round Calgary, sadly we were all delayed as Neil McKinnon had a big accident and ended up being airlifted to hospital.
A reminder that the island takes no prisoners. After a blast down Loch tuath we headed off to service with the car going well on it's new springs. We had a laugh at the results as Stevie was only 2 seconds behind us, with near identical times!
The second loop of stages took us down to Loch Scridain, 4 miles of reasonably flat twisty bumpy tarmac followed by Gribun, well known for its road on the edge of the sea around some big cliffs and some fearful high speed jumps over blind crests. The rain had stopped and the roads were drying up so only one thing to do, go for it! Gribun was in the best condition I've seen for years, plenty grip, no standing water, the first couple of miles are super fast as you drop down off the hills to the coast and then its breath in to squeeze past the big dark domineering cliffs onto the faster than you'd think blast along the foreshore.
There's a section in the middle with three similar crests but the last one is slightly more right than the others and more of a jump, with all the adrenaline flowing I misjudged the angle and was carrying a bit more speed than planned which meant we jumped off the road, I could see a pile of rocks in front and was on some grass with the road off somewhere to the right. I tried turning and low and behold the tyres gripped as we sort of fish tailed gracefully back onto the road. God knows how we found grip with even usually unflappable Duncan offering some comment "good recovery". I tried to maintain the rhythm to the end of the stage but you do go that wee bit slower after a big moment, the time was still 10 secs up on my previous best so there's still more to come.
Gribun is a difficult place to make friends with but when it flows it's magic. We crept up to 14th o/a at the end of the leg with the better run on the last two stages.
Saturday daytime
 The service crew were up at the crack of dawn fettling both the Escort and the Fiesta, they survive on a diet of sandwiches, crisps and little or no sleep for the weekend, and occasionally a wee drink in the pub on the Sunday if they're lucky enough not to rush back to work.
The weather looked Ok for the afternoon loop although a wee shower part way through added to the excitement. The route was extremely compact covering 5 stages in the north half of the island.
The second stage was to prove our undoing, a first blast over the hill road, extremely narrow bumpy road across the moorland hill tops and down towards Dervaig.
Climbing up the hill I had some problems getting gears and when coming into a medium right I missed a down change unsettling the car and running slightly wide, unlike the scare on Gribun this time we ended up pirouetting along the stage over the moorland ending up nose down into a ditch. Fortunately not too much damage and after several attempts with spectators to extract the car and also to push us out a bog further up the road, which I tried to turn on, we chugged through the rest of the stage to make sure the car was OK.
We ended up taking a maximum dropping about 2 mins, it could have been a lot worse, once your off the road on Mull it's more likely you'll not be coming back on. We had a fairly sensible run round the rest of the leg, making double sure not to go off the 2nd time over the hill road. Even the famous steps section on Calgary went well, managing to keep the car at a lower altitude than previous car wrecking flights. We dropped down to 17th with the off but were pretty happy to still be there now lying 2nd in class. Stevie was now up to 15th and going really well, with the wee Fiesta setting some impressive times along the way.
Saturday night
With 56 miles still to go it felt like the third rally of the weekend so with the cars converted back to night mode with lights on it was down to Salen for the final set in this years rally car dancing competition. Some coincidences are weird, we were in 17th place, 17 secs behind Stevie on a 17 stage rally! The first stage of the night is the longest of the rally at 22 miles, the first half was fine but we struggled over the latter half.
For some unknown reason my helmet was amplifying all the noise in the car making it very uncomfortable and difficult to hear Duncan, well that's another of my excuses. The weather was a mixture of dry and damp in places. We struggled to make an impression on the class leader and decided to continue at our own pace rather than start risking everything in the chase, especially as fatigue was likely to be setting in. The next stage, up over the Mishnish Lochs from Dervaig to Tob was wet but good fun as it was easy to get the Escort broad siding on the tight hairpins, I normally keep it tidy but was enjoying the sideways action.
At service we'd been demoted to 2nd team car with Stevie revelling in the limelight under the eazyup and us next door without cover, he'd earned it lying just outside a calendar spot.
With the penultimate stage cancelled due to PR issue over some cows this left two stages to finish off, little did we know how things would change. We started the Scridain stage two cars behind Stevie and we're taken aback when we spotted the fiesta beached on the rocks halfway through, I spotted someone who I thought to be Andrew holding the OK board up but later found out it was Stevie, despite slowing we still passed at high speed and proceeded to the end of the stage to report the incident to the marshals.
It later turned out Andrew had been injured with pain in his stomach area and was taken to hospital for checks. After some follow up medical attention this week he's Ok apart from some bruising. Luckily Stevie came out of it Ok too with some bruising and stiffness. Another reminder of Mull's unforgiving nature. There was a delay before the final stage, the now customary run over the Hill Road and again super fast blast down Glen Aros and without telephone coverage we were still in the dark about the detail of Stevie's accident. The only problem we had during the final stage was again being blinded by the new reflective passing signs on the last part of the Glen! Bring back the old black and white poles, much safer.
At the finish we waited around for results and caught up with Stevie and the team, who'd gone into recovery mode, trying to ensure the car was rescued before the tide came in!
We were pleasantly surprised with our result of 13th O/A 1st in class, a combination of problems and accidents for others and our steady consistent run meant we'd regained the class lead in the end. The calendar would have been nice but I'm thankful we finished after our earlier misadventures and 13 is only unlucky for some!
Post Mull depression is setting in, the lack of sleep is having a strange effect this week, it's difficult to concentrate, and my mind keeps wandering back to rally cars and that beautiful island of Mull.
As ever we couldn't compete without a lot of help and those of you mentioned below deserve a special mention whither it was for helping out or the loan of some parts:-
Duncan Brown (bestest navigator for "the best rally in the world")
Linda Brown (she had to endure the whole event stuck at home!)
Calum Hardie, Colin Brown, Chris Booker, Steven Cameron, Andy Tong, Duncan & Pear
Olive Brown
George Gauld
Keith Robathan
Calum Mackenzie
Tarafornoountilnextyearstourinoctober2010
|
