| Kindom Stages All four LCC crews finished the Kindom Stages run by GMSC at Crail on Sunday &th November. Martin Murray/Mergen Glenning were 32nd Graeme Sherry/Alan Maxwell were 41st Kenneth McRae/Janet McRae were 59th David Tait/David Crosbie were 65th (Saturday 7th of November 2009) |
| Early Winter Rally OUR LAST RALLY EVER ? The build-up to this year’s Early Winter Rally, on Hallowe’en night, had gone badly. On the Thursday before the event, Neil Turner had very generously and quite uncharacteristically invited his long time driver, Charles Brown, to be his guest at a function in Glasgow. However, the smoked salmon (or its sauce) had bounced straight back out of the Brown stomach much to his discomfort. Cunningly, Charles has already organised retribution by inviting Neil to a Christmas party. Beware of the mince pie with the cross on it, Neil ! And so to the rally……..starting in Coldstream, the penultimate scheduled event (following the cancellation of the Teviotdale) of the 2009 Scottish Associations Navigational Rally Championship attracted a mere 11 crews………. 4 Experts of which only Charles and Neil were eligible for “Scottish” championship points as the others were English, 4 “Historic” crews, and 3 local beginners (and here ‘local’ includes Scots and English). This is really sad and probably represents the death knell of the sport in Scotland. The expense, obstructions and organisational hassles put in place by our governing body, with the apparent ‘hidden’ agenda of ending competitive motorsport on the public highway, appear to have finally sickened existing competitors, newcomers and organisers alike. So it is to the credit of Berwick and District Motor Club that they proceeded to run the event this year even though it required around three times as many officials and marshals as competitors. And there were a couple of unusual twists to this event :- Firstly, all crews were issued with a batch of around 25 sealed envelopes containing the 3 Timecards and the 22 route instructions. On arrival at each Control, the navigator was required to show the marshal that the envelope containing the paperwork for the next Section was still sealed and remained that way until Due Time. This was an interesting experiment but Neil found it to be really tiresome and fiddly…….and the wee Lupo soon filled up with blue language and torn, discarded envelopes ! And secondly, to save dragging out the results process at the Finish, the organisers had set three “tie-breaker only” navigation tests during the rally. These were, effectively, small autotests held after Control 3 in a muddy farmyard, after Control 9 in a car park at Torness Power Station, and after Control 20 in Charterhall ex-Airfield. As it turned out, no tie-breakers were required but the tests were fun and made the event just that little bit out of the ordinary. The route went north (no choice from Coldstream !) and utilised a couple of tricky not-as-map tracks over, under and beside the A1 near Torness. A bit of moorland road south of Longformacus gave the drivers a challenge before the Finish at Leitholm near Duns. (Saturday 7th of November 2009) |
.JPG) LCC Scenic Observation RunScenic Observation RunRun in conjunction with Stirling and District Classic Car Club, LCC's Scenic Observation Run on the 2nd August was an excellent event according to the comments from the competitors at the finish at the Birds and Bees Restaurant in Bridge of Allan. Unfortunately many of the promised entrants failed to turn up on the day, which was their loss as the event was blessed by good sunny weather, making driving the scenic route a pleasure not to be missed. The start at Dobbies Garden World in Stirling where Betty Merry signing on the competitors at 9am, allowing them time to visit Dobbies Cafe, or spend their money on other goodies before John Shanks handed out the route instructions and other paperwork paperwork prior to the 1st car starting at 10 am. Don Macbeth who had to withdraw from the event due to his intended car breaking down turned up at the start to drool over the site of the Ford Capris, while others could not help drooling over Alan Sprouls Ferrari. First car away was Colin Rees being navigated by LCC Webmaster Kenneth McRae, following a route defined by Tulip diagrams. Passing through Stirling the route looped north passed Wallace monument, a loop off and onto the A91 through Gogar then onto the very narrow road north of Alva, with a short stretch of unsurfaced road. From here the route headed east through Fishcross, Coalnaughton, then several excellent yellows to Kinross and a clockwise loop of Loch Leven Compliance with the route was checked not by the usual rally method of controls, manned route checks and code boards, but by putting a series of photographs of objects, in the correct order they were passed along the correct route. All the objects could be seen from the car, with objects varying from, easy to spot buildings, bridges or signs, to more difficult, such as a broken tree branch or a car number plate fixed to a garden gate at a T-Junction where competitors had to turn right. At the halfway halt at the RSPB site at Vane Farm in Kinross the joint leaders with all 15 photos in correct order were the Jamie Anderson/Chris Sloss (Capri) and Alan D Brown/Isobel Lochiel (Capri), It was reported that Gary and Craig/Robertson had decided to withdraw from the event at the end of the 200 yard unsurfaced road in Menstrie. From Vane Farm the route led competitors on a loops passed the Scottish Vintage Bus Museum, over the Cleish hills, through Saline and Oakley, the narrow cobbled streets of Culross, the Kincardine Bridge to a final loop of the A908 on the way to the Finish at the Birds and Bees Restaurant in Bridge of Allan. 1st overall was car 13,Alan Brown/Isobel Lochiel (Clockwork Orange Capri) dropping only one point by driving past and missing the second picture in the 2nd half (a double road sign of a Bicycle under a sharp left hand bend) Spirit of the Event award went to the furthest travelled crew of Andy Barron and 6-year-old Daughter Claudio from Oban. (Watch out for this budding world champion navigator) Equal 2nd Jamie Anderson/Chris Sloss and Ian/Brenda McRae (Vauxhall Corsa) who cleaned the 2nd half, 27 points. 4th Ian Arthur/Michele Campbell (Cortina), 26 points 5th equal, Andy Barron/Claudia Barron (MGB Roadster) and Steve Allan/Jack Allan (Triumph TR7), 23 Points 7th Colin Rees/Kenneth McRae (Vauxhall Nova), 22 Points 8th Alan Duncan/Jack Porter (Toyota Celica), 15 points (Saturday 7th of November 2009) |
| Autumn Rally HIGHLAND CAR CLUB’S AUTUMN RALLY 2009 Lanarkshire Car Club’s reigning Scottish Navigational Rally champions, Charles Brown and Neil Turner, ventured up to Inverness in the wee Lupo on 29th August to compete in the fourth round of this year’s series. The rally turned out to be a very satisfying 99 mile combination of intricate navigation and challenging moorland roads for an entry fee of just £25. Despite this, there was only a disappointing 12 competing crews in total………but 6 of these were entered in the all-important Open Class. Charles and Neil’s main rivals this year, Sue and Tom Hynd had withdrawn their entry for some unknown reason but there was still stiff opposition from local crews John Albiston/Graham Watson in a beautiful old Alfa Romeo, Brian Fraser/Iain Thorburn in a fire-breathing Avenger Tiger and Scott MacDonald/Stewart Hurst in a Ka. Fraser/Thorburn missed a code on the 2nd section (possibly couldn’t see it for the smoke and flames!) which turned out to be their only penalty of the night, dropping them to 3rd at the finish. Otherwise, 4 crews cleaned the first half and the organisers speedily prepared a navigation test in case a tie-breaker was needed at the end. However, 2 of these crews missed codes on Section 10 leaving only our local heroes and the Albiston/Watson Alfa penalty free going into the last 2 sections. And then the Alfa cut a bend a wee bit too close and shattered a (rather expensive) wheel on a semi-hidden boulder. It took 5 minutes to change which resulted in them dropping to 2nd and leaving the Brown/Turner Lupo to sail majestically home in 1st place with the only clean sheet of the evening. This came as a major, but delightful, surprise to Charles and Neil who hadn’t won a rally since the Over and Under in 2006 and feared that gradually deteriorating reactions, eyesight, bowel control, brain power and stamina had reduced their former competitiveness sufficiently to make thoughts of outright wins mere pipe-dreams. However, career win number 83 for this veteran combo (out of 211 starts) is now in the bag so look out on the Hairst for a rejuvenated Team Alzheimer’s. And as a postscript – Neil had taken his caravan up north and stayed for a week after the rally at Rosemarkie on the Black Isle. During the course of this week, a game of golf was arranged against Graham Watson, the navigator of the 2nd placed Alfa. It was one of those VERY rare days when Neil just couldn’t do anything wrong and he coasted effortlessly to a huge 7 and 6 win over his long-time rallying rival. Or as Charles graciously said when he heard the result “I would never have imagined that Graham was so bad at golf….” (Saturday 7th of November 2009) |
