By Barry Lindsay
The Spadeadam Soapbox event goes well back in the history of SMC. Despite a 8 year layoff 10 competitors lined up at a new hill near Penton. 7 Adults and 3 juniors would all enjoy an afternoon of smiles & laughs along with fear and butt clenching moments.
Fastest after 2 practice runs the 3 timed runs saw Neil Thomlinson have the best time of 53sec.
Neil Thomlinson on the attack
Dmack Carlisle Stages – Peter Taylor finished 2nd OA (2nd in class), Darren Martin / Martin Steele finished 37th OA (10th in class), Barry & Michael Lindsay finished 40th OA (2nd in class), Phil & Caroline Jobson finished 44th OA (2nd in class), James Coxon finished 56th OA (4th in class) Rob Graham / Helen Gibbon finished 67th OA (4th in class), Mike Martin / Kyle Gass finished 89th OA (15th in class). Rory Young & Allan Cathers retired after stage 4.
BSSMC Kieth Frecker Weeton – Barrie Thomson / Jerry Hettrick were 8th OA (3rd in class). Tim Finch was 10th OA (4th in class).
Scottish Rally – Rory Young & Allan Cathers in the R5+ Fiesta finished 3rd OA (2nd in class), John McIlwraith finished 34th OA (1st in class) in the Mk2 Escort
By Barry Lindsay,
Jim Clark returned to the forests in 2015 following 2014’s accidents to give the organisers time to adapt for a return to roads in 2016. I heard the route was using the forests similar to a Border Counties Rally of 2007. Infact the stages turned out to be the same. The event had good and bad memories, was a good fun & competitive day but also a one we rolled on. Back in 2007 we ran 2nd car on the road behind George Macdonald and ahead of Carl Tuer. It was one of the first events to run under 1600’s at the front of the main pack but was a great day.
In 2015 though the event didn’t live up to expectations.. Running car 40 which was 3rd 1600 the first two stages were wet & misty and had dug up quite bad. Caroline & Myself dropped 20sec to the class leader on SS1 with 8m26. Peter Taylor & Andrew Roughead got 7m12 with Focus dropping 10 seconds to Faulkner on 7m02. Rory Young & Allan Cathers had there first event in a new Fiesta R5. 7m 16 was 5th fastest a great start. That was Ogre Hill crews now headed to Rooken along side the forest drive. The start line was so bad I opted to start in the loose rather than risk getting stuck sitting on the sumpguard the ruts were so deep. The stage was little better in places the sandy surface was like being in a toboggan run in some corners. Chicaines were a mass of dug up rocks. 7m16 was our time which dropped another 26sec to class leader. Peter had upped his pace getting 6m00 which was 2nd fastest. Rory & Allan got 6m23 8th fastest. Continue reading
Cetus Stages at 3 Sisters – Barrie Thomson / Jerry Hettrick finished 5th OA ( 2nd in class), Caroline Lodge navigated her way to 17th OA (7th in class) with Chris Thomas in a Sunbeam.
JO Memorial Rally – Andy Westgarth took the Skoda, but retired on the first stage with Distributor failure.
Jim Clark – Peter Taylor finished 2nd OA in the Focus, Rory Young & Allan Cathers debuted there new R5 Fiesta. Were straight on the pace, finishing 7th OA 3rd in class. Barry Lindsay & Caroline Lodge took the 206 to 32nd OA (2nd in class)
By David Love,
Have you ever wondered how a newly married wife feels when she has to feed her new in-laws for the first time. There’s the worry of what she needs to make the meal a success, then there’s the gathering together of all the ingredients, the preparation of the meal followed by the meal itself with all it’s associated stress and finally the clearing up afterwards with the feeling of relief that it all worked out. I stopped wondering that when I joined the Pirelli Rally organising committee because I discovered that helping to organise a rally is very similar, you go through the same ordeal and stressful feelings. So I thought I’d bore you with my actions in the week leading up to the meal, oops rally!
Monday evening started with Barry Lindsay, Chris Walker, Les Bellingham and I assembling the equipment for each of the stages. It was surprising to find that we filled 13 large bin liners with signs for only 3 stages, I think it was only 10 bags for 5 stages last year. The reason for the extra signs is all down to the new Safety Guidelines from the MSA and also being unsure of what the MSA Safety Delegate would expect. We also set aside the signs for the Service Areas and the spare equipment to go in the Chief Marshal and 000 Course Cars.
On to Tuesday, after finishing work early I headed to the Cumbria Park for our final committee meeting before the rally. At this meeting most of the time is taken up with assembling the packs for officials such as Stewards, Scrutineers, Course Cars, etc. We were also going to print Map Books, Media Books and Seeded Entry Lists on a colour photocopier provided by our long time supporter Danwood. Unfortunately the photocopier didn’t want to talk to my Mac Book, it seemed it preferred the inferior attentions of a Windows laptop, no accounting for taste. Once we eventually got it up and printing, it produced the map book at the scintillating rate of one every minute and a half. This was more than a little bit worrying, as we had to print about 170 books. We gave up this unequal struggle at 11pm. Continue reading
By David Love
No, I’m not going to write about people like our Newsletter Editor although I will say that Helen does a marvellous job with the limited contributions she receives I’m sure her compact dimensions have nothing to do with it.
I have long had a fascination and appreciation for small detailed creations especially if it’s a small-scale replica of a full sized item. I’ve even found myself looking at Lillyput Lane pottery houses but the less said about that the better. It probably all stems from when I was a young child and discovered Matchbox toys, younger members Google it. I thought it was great that you could hold a car or even a lorry in your hand. Of course as I got older I turned to Airfix kits, most of which were aircraft but there were a few cars in their range and amazingly some are still current models. They include E Type, Triumph TR4A, Triumph Herald and 4½ litre Bentley. I did assemble a few aircraft kits but only so I could set fire to them to watch them crash and burn in the dark. Health and Safety warning, don’t try this at home kids, melting Airfix kits and skin cause tears if they come into contact with each other.
After watching films such as Duel and Convoy and selling Foden trucks for a year or two I moved on to building plastic 1/24th scale American truck kits. British and European trucks just weren’t available at that time. The problem with plastic kits is that once built they are quite fragile and bits drop off when you touch them. They were also long, a tractor unit and trailer were nearly 2 foot long. I needed something stronger and smaller so in the late 70s, the 1970s that is, not my 70s, I discovered white metal kits from Grand Prix Models (GPM). Despite their name they also produced kits of rally cars in 1/43 scale with the Eaton Yale Mkll being one of their first kits. Some of the early castings were a bit rough and lacking in detail but they could be filed, sanded with wet and dry and sprayed with car paint aerosols. If you used car paint on plastic it had a tendency to melt. GPM also sold kits by other manufacturers, mostly Continental, but the only way to find out about them was to take out a paid subscription for GPM’s monthly newsletter which mainly consisted of low resolution black & white photos of the built version of kits they were selling. It was difficult to get a clear idea of how accurate the kit was until you’d parted with your money and the kit arrived in the post. Some of the kits were poor quality but once you paid your money you were stuck with them. Continue reading
April’s 12 car was based over the border, a great route but not without it’s fair share of issues for crews!
1st OA 1st Nov Andrew Graham / Michael Humes 3F 30min
2nd OA 1st Exp Barry Lindsay / Neil Thomlinson 7F 30min
Rtd Richard Clark / Paul Hettrick Steering
Rtd Nigel Harkness / Helen Gibbon Puncture / Wheel
Rtd Phil Jobson / Caroline Jobson Engine
Championship positions after 3 rounds
Expert
1st Barry Lindsay 34pts 1st Jerry Hetrick 22pts
2nd Phil Jobson 20pts 2nd Pete Johnson 12pts
3rd Barrie Thomson 12pts 3rd Richard Todd 12pts
4th Andrew Graham 9pts 4th Neil Thomlinson 12pts
5th Caroline Jobson 10pts
6th George Edminson 9pts
Novice
1st Andrew Graham 24pts 1st Michael Humes 24pts
2nd Nigel Harkness 20pts 2nd Helen Gibbon 20pts
3rd Kenton Pattison 20pts 3rd Paul Hettrick 18pts
4th Richard Clark 18pts 4th Neil Henderson 10pts
5th Callum 10pts
Pirelli Carlisle Rally – Peter Taylor won the Modern section and the Overall win. Darren Martin & Pete Johnson won the Clubman section. Phil Jobson finished 32nd Overall (2nd in class) in the main Historic section. Rob Graham & Helen Gibbon retired on the final stage stuck in a ditch. Clive Alcock retired before getting to the first stage with steering rack problems.
Ingliston – Geoffrey Harkness & Caroline Lodge finished 30th Overall (7th in class), Nick Young navigated his way to 27th Overall (11th in class). Andy Westgarth finished 53rd Overall (5th in class)
By David Love
Maybe I’m being a little melodramatic or alarmist as it hasn’t happened yet but the death of forest rallying might be closer than we think. We have to accept that rallying, as we have known it, is now dead. Due to the deaths on last years Jim Clark big changes are coming our way and we have to accept them. You only have to read the open letter that Rob Jones, Chief Executive of the MSA published after the Wyedean to realise the future of forest stage rallying is in the balance.
At our recent Awards Night, guest speaker, Mike Faulkner expressed his concern over how rallying would change with the safety initiatives that are starting to be implemented by the MSA. As we all know the Scottish Government have investigated and reviewed rally safety, they have made recommendations, some of which have already been implemented on Scottish rallies and they will soon be coming to the rest of the country. The MSA is also coming under Health and Safety pressure from the Forestry Commission who themselves are reviewing and implementing improvements in the safety of their own industry. Rallying is probably safer now than 20 years ago but with the explosion in social media even the smallest misdemeanour is broadcast to thousands of people and is sometimes blown out of proportion. Society has changed with the advent of Ambulance Chasers, sorry, Accident Claims Lawyers so that common sense and taking responsibility for your own actions have flown out of the window. You and I know it’s going to hurt if we stick our hand into a roaring coal fire but there is a section of society that would do it and then sue the owner because there wasn’t a fireguard. Therefore rallying must also change! Continue reading
By Phil Jobson,
A fellow club member told me rallying was meant to follow the cricket season. RAC 2013 taught me why that should be! Snowy (my immaculate newly built Ford Escort Mk1 Class C3 Historic rally car) left an icy road in Craik forest; an unscheduled flight pirouetting across a 50m ravine and landing upright on the far bank.
However, after a busy season helping my Welsh navigator, Arwel Jenkins, to win Class C3 in the RAC Championship, I’ve learned a lot about how tyres help one stick to the road. We use soft compound DMack gravel tyres, and we’ve found that lower tyre pressures provide better stability and this engenders confidence.
This was all critical on the recent Red Kites Stages, the first round of the British Historic Rally Championship. Although the start in Llandovery was clear of frost and snow, the first stage in Crychan was gripped in ice. Category 1 and up to 1600cc cars tackled the stages first, so there were patches where the frost had broken up and some of the apexes offered decent grip.
As long as we maintained smooth momentum over the icy patches, we could attack the rest. Although we struggled with gear selection all day – nothing changes there then – we set reasonably competitive times and saw others fall by the wayside or go off.
The second Crychan stage was cancelled as the long uphill approach was impassable through ice. A cracking stage in Caeo followed, and was relatively clear, although we had to watch for ice in the shaded sections. Crychan 1&2 were repeated, though a treacherous longer run in to Crychan 2 reduced stage length to only 2.5 miles. But what a stage! Wide open fast uphill drifts made for lots of sideways fun.
We were surprised to see Peter Smith (supposedly a Class C3) Opel Kadett set fastest time, taking about 20 seconds off BDA Escorts. By the time we tackled the final stage, we were up to 35th overall and safely second in Class. Only after the event have we learned that we have been awarded maximum Class points in the BHRC, and Peter Smith is accredited with points in Class D5. So it seems we won our Class. Thanks once again to Richard Clark for building a solid car and looking after us on the event. A day only made better with free meals on the way home!
Spadeadam Motor Club 
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