Dmack Stages – Peter Taylor & Andrew Roughead 2nd OA 2nd in class. Rory Young & Allan Cathers 13th OA 9th in class, Phil & Caroline Jobson 33rd OA 3rd in class. Mark & Amanda Talbot 70th OA 5th in class.
Severn Valley – Phil Jobson & Arwel Jenkins retired with gearbox problems.
Mini Epynt – Phil Jobson & Arwel Jenkins finished 23rd OA 5th in class
Weeton – Tim Finch finished 4th OA 4th in class in his Subaru
By David Love
You know how it is; the wife is dragging you around a shopping centre and you wish you were at the dentist instead, getting a tooth pulled without anaesthetic. Then you see salvation, a cool car on display in one of the intersections of the walkways. You beg, tell the wife you’re just popping over to have a look at it and you’ll only be a minute and before you get a lecture you rush over to it. It really is impressive close up and as you stand there drooling a minder comes over and starts telling you about the wonderful technological features of the car. He then offers to take your contact details to keep you informed of special offers and developments, you feel sorry for him being stuck there all day talking to hundreds of tyre kickers so you give him your details and wait to get pestered on a weekly basis.
Well, that was me last September and surprisingly I’d only had a handful of newsletter type of emails from them since then. That was until a couple of weeks ago when my mobile phone rang with a call from a Manchester number. Now I normally ignore calls from numbers I don’t recognise but for some reason I answered this one. ‘Good morning, this is Thomas from Tesla Motors, is that David? OK, somebody’s winding me up but it doesn’t sound like any of the guys from work. I give a tentative yes and he says “ We’re going to be in Carlisle next Tuesday and wondered if you like to try the Model S. “You have to ask!” I think to myself as I say “Yes” and everything is arranged. Continue reading
Pirelli Historic / 2wd – Phil Jobson & Arwell Jenkins took 14th OA 3rd in class in the Mk1 Escort. Mark & Amanda Talbot were 41st OA 1st in the upto 1400 class. Rob Graham & Helen Harkness were 46th OA 2nd in class despite an off.
Pirelli Clubman – Darren Martin & Martin Steele took the win in this section for the second year.
Pirelli BRC – Fredrik Ahlin & Morton Abrahamsen won the event in the CA1 Fiesta R5. Elfyn Evans & Craig Parry finished 3rd overall in the Dmack Fiesta R5, Max Vatanen & Jacques Renucci finished 10th in the Dmack Fiesta R5
By Phil Jobson
Having fallen in love with Wales through rallying, I’m gutted to now read that Natural Resources Wales (NRW) plan to recover the whole cost of forest road restoration from MSA and therefore largely from competitors. The impact of unsustainable forestry charges will, of course, spell the end of forest rallying in Wales. Not only is the passion for the sport in Wales extensive, but rallying provides remote rural communities with huge investment from competitors, support crews and spectators. The levels of such revenue would not be available from other activities.
It would seem utterly logical, and make economic sense to me, for the MSA and Welsh Government to subsidise any gap in forest road restoration. From their figures, this would amount to just over £300,000, a pittance in comparison to the many millions forest rallying attracts to these rural areas. But why should there be such a massive cost in forest road restoration in the first place? What came of the discussions a number of years ago of redesigning tyres to cause less damage to forest roads? Continue reading
By Barry Lindsay
Deputy Chief Marshal
When I was asked to join the Pirelli organizing committee 3 year ago, at first I tried to get out of it but eventually Eric Ritchie talked me round to go to one meeting. Barry Armstrong was working all the hours he could and was needing help with the marshal side so agreed to help.
2016 was my third year and back into the British Rally championship as well as the British Historic Championship, Aneccc and Northern Historic. We went back to 2 days of competition and twice the mileage to marshal on the Saturday than we did in 2015. Meetings started back last June when there was talk of a strong possibility of being in the BRC. At this point chicanes were mentioned and one of the criticisms on the 2015 event had been the pallets used to build them so 2016 had to be big bales.
At this point I probably should have engaged brain before mouth but I stuck both feet in, I seem to become in charge of Bales from that point. 40 Big Bales were bought and wrapped at Laversdale in the harvest season and stored ready for April. Continue reading
By Andy Westgarth
The first rally for me this year was filled with highs an lows after a stressful rebuild over the past couple of months. Well we got there on Saturday an did an afternoon of marshalling then finished any little jobs before camping out in the back of the car. The day started well with getting through scrutineering apart from having to put yellow tape on the earth, we then went off to the start of the first stages an all ways going well for the first few stages, there were 16 in total, we weren’t the quickest but we were having fun. We then started the 7th stage an at the start I turned to Nick an said “that chicane looks quite open, u think we can make it flat out” he agreed so of we went, when we got to the chicane it was a bit tighter than it looked, an well we hit it quite hard in third (2 wagon tyres stacked up) after that the problems started 3rd had gear gone not sure where but it’s not where it was supposed to be, wing bent and a knocking noise had now started, we carried on for another 4 stages before the knock was now a loud bang an getting worse, it was time to call it a day which I was a bit annoyed because due to cars not turning up an retiring we were in 2nd overall (also last). But after we retired I got to meet Jimmy McRae an ended up with a little memory of a bent signed wing from him just something to hang on the wall. Then on the trip home I decided time for a change so the Skoda is up for sale and a Corsa shell has arrived at my house to start a new build, I will keep you up to date on my Facebook page as I go through the build.
http://www.facebook.com/Awrallying
DCC Stages, Ingliston. Nigel & Helen Harkness finished 38th Overall (12th in class), Barrie Thomson / Jerry Hettrick failed to Finish due to a concern over oil pressure.
Rally North Wales was round 2 of the British Historic Championship Phil Jobson finished 20th Overall (3rd in class).
Circuit of Ireland – The three Spadeadam teams in the BRC all had a bad weekend. Elfin / Craig had the speed and set quite a few fastest stage times but a snapped Aux belt put them out of the event. Fredrik / Morton adapted to tarmac quickly and were leading the BRC event but a couple of little offs led to a bigger one on SS10 and had to retire. Max / Jacques retired on stage 7 with mechanical problems also.
Organized by Jerry & Barrie the event started from ALS on Kingstown for a 95mile Saturday night run. 6 crews set off as dusk descended into Darkness. Route went around the Orton area before heading south via Thursby then east via Skip Rigg and Durdar before petrol at Carrow House. The remainder of the route cris crossed the M6 via Armathwaite and Ivegill etc before finishing near Southwaite. Continue reading
By Barry Lindsay
Seven Spadeadam crews lined up to stage the BTRDA event which started from M-sport base at Cockermouth. Comb, Wythop and Greystoke before service at Penrith then Thornsgill, Grizedale North, Grizedale South and Thornsgill 2 before the second service then Greystoke 2 before finishing at Penrith Auction.
Rory Young & Allan Cathers were in the R5 and seeded at 7.Barry & Michael Lindsay were at 52 in the 206. Phil & Caroline Jobson were at 63 closely followed at 67 by Darren Martin & Martin Steele in the Evo9. Mark Shaw & James Coxon were at 72 in the Sunbeam, Rob Graham & Helen Harkness in the Historic class Mk1 at 90 then Jimmy Hall & Caroline Lodge at 95.
Barry & Michael were first to find out how slippy the stages were. Near the end of the Comb stage the 206 entered a 90 left hairpin right almost backwards clipping a bank and slamming it into some big rocks. Over a minute was lost as spectators manhandle the car backwards as reverse couldn’t be selected. The impact had bent the bottom arm, steering arm and subframe eventually getting a time of 7m 59. Quickest through the stage was Rory & Allan with 6m09 ahead of Darren & Martin in the Evo with 6m 47. Phil & Caroline were next with 6m 58, then Mark & James on 7m01. Jimmy & Caroline got 7m03 but this included a spin at the same place as Barry & Michael hit the rock. The silly thing is they all know the corner as its where Caroline rolled navigating for Dave Head a few years ago. Rob & Helen getting 7m 21.
By Nigel Harkness
Back in March, at 7pm on a Sunday night, the entries opened for the DCC stages. Helen was primed and sat ready to fill in the entry, as fast as her fingers could type. The entry went in at 7.09pm, and not many minutes after that the entries were full, and the site wouldn’t accept any more.
Now all we had to do was wait to see if we did actually hit the “enter” button in time! There was a phone call to Helen the next morning to compare times (of the email “receipt of entry”) from the only other SMC crew to get an entry in- Barrie Thomson & Jerry Hettrick. This was becoming nail biting stuff, and we hadn’t even turned a wheel yet. Entry list was published, BT & Jerry were on the reserves, but Helen & I were on the list! Right, first hurdle done! Then it came to the seeded entry list being published, BT & Jerry were seeded at 28 & we were at 58 out of 80. We were very happy with that, as it was the highest we’d been seeded with the Corsa so far.
On the Saturday morning of the rally…. No, I’ll re-phrase that… in the wee small, godforsaken hours of Saturday morning, we headed north! On arrival at the show ground we found a small, Corsa sized spot to service from, and joined the queue for scrutineering. Paperwork & signing on out the way, we had enough time for a quick walk round some of the first stage. Right – Left – Right – Right – Left – Right… continue for 46 miles + the odd split and merge!
Spadeadam Motor Club 
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