Mixed fortunes for county rally drivers

Mar 27 2008 By George Topp

COLTNESS Car Club drivers had a day of mixed success in the opening round of the Scottish Tarmack Rally Championship at Crail on Saturday.

The best local performers were Allan Gardiner and Robin Nicolson from Biggar, who took their Mk2 Escort to 17th place overall.

The first of seven Peugeot 205GTi crews from the “Bears” was Scot Erskine and Alan Todd, also from Biggar, who finished 41st.

In 45th place was Drew Struthers and Jim Johnston from Liberton in their Talbot Sunbeam.

They would have finished within the top 20 had not a wrong turn on the second-last stage cost them valuable time.

Jordan Black and Ken Philips from Lanark finished 48th in another Peugeot.

They had a big moment on stage one, hitting an immovable object and rearranging the front of the car.

Then, on the second stage, Jordan took the last corner wide, unknowingly cutting up the car behind who had still a lap to go, and a collision ensued which rearranged the back of Jordan's car!

The similar car of Luke McLaren and Anca Baltac, Crossford, finished 54th.

They came in a lap too early on the first stage and took time faults, otherwise they’d have finished about 10 places higher.

All three of the VIP cars entered for the Smith family from Crossford failed to finish.

Teenager Johnny’s Peugeot did not make the start line after a number of experts spent four days trying to find the reason for a fault with the car.

Johnny then arranged to share brother Graeme’s car.

Johnny had two good class times before a battery master switch failed on special stage 3. That was repaired only for the suspension to collapse on SS4 after an “altercation” with large tyres.

This meant Graeme suffered and only got a run on stages one and three, which he still enjoyed.

Their father Colin had a good run on SS1 but the throttle cable broke on SS22, forcing the crew to use shoe laces to nurse the car back to service.

Their service crew, led by former Scottish hillclimb champion Kenny Allen, repaired the car, which then set a bfast time on SS3 only for the engine to fail on SS4.

Newcomers Graeme and Ken Schoneville from Carluke had two really good times and were enjoying their first event when Graeme clipped a tyre on SS3 and put their Peugeot 205 on its roof in a field.