This months “Who’s That?” is SMC #2 driver ….
David Hope
What car do you rally ?
Subaru.
How long have you been rallying and what was your first event ?
Been rallying on and off since 1991, first event was Hallburn – came 15th if I remember correctly.
Best result?
Back in those days I could get in the top ten. Best result was 3rd overall from a field of 60 odd at Hallburn, but also came 7th from 100 on the Pendragon. Continue reading
By Phil & Caroline Jobson
Basking in 28˚C ? Well not in Perthshire on 1st October! Torrential rain greeted crews to the otherwise picturesque Aberfeldy beside the River Tay. Receiving a tow off the trailer park / service field following scrutineering was a sign of things to come.
We took Snowy for a thrash around some classic stages on the Colin McRae Stages and survived a massive attrition rate to come away with a respectable result. As usual, we stopped overnight in the middle of nowhere at an isolated steading that, to me, resembled Father Ted’s House on Craggy Island. Our very welcoming host had moved recently from Kendal – my dreams were interrupted with fears of what terrible crime had caused him to be banished to such a place!
SS1 had been cancelled for the National B event because Peter Smith / Russell Langhorne Historic BDA Mk1 went off at a rough quarry area. I can understand why! This meant us hanging around at MTC1, but eventually we headed off to Auchtar Gate (more commonly known as the classic Drummond Hill). Now having done this stage before, I know why it’s a classic, but this time round it was both treacherously slippery (rain on the dusty surface leaving me thinking I was riding a bar of soap on the bathroom floor) and low cloud restricting visibility to 30m in places. This wasn’t helped further by a misting up with the heated screen failing. We caught a car after about 8 miles and he wouldn’t let us past. Frankly I wasn’t about to force the issue as to get off line in there would certainly be curtains. We lost at least 2-3 minutes.
Lindisfarne – Peter Taylor was 2nd Overall winning his class, Barry & Michael Lindsay were 5th Overall (1st in class), Geoffrey Harkness & Caroline Lodge were 13th Overall (4th in class). Rally Yorkshire Peter Taylor was 4th Overall 2nd in class.Merrick – Peter Taylor was 11th Overall (1st in class).
By Barry Lindsay
The Pirtek Lindisfarne Rally was the second of three events on Otterburn, this one organised by Tynemouth MC. It was the penultimate round of the AS Performance, North of England tarmacadam championship, of which the three Spadeadam members are all registered Peter Taylor & Andrew Roughead (6) Myself & Michael (10) and Geoffrey Harkness & Caroline Lodge (25). I was in a good position to clinch the title at this round only needing to finish ahead of or just behind stunt driver Paul Swift. But if we didn‟t finish, we still had the next round to fall back on. I had done the Recce with Caroline on the Saturday using a disguise. Caroline had obtained David Robinsons highly tuned Recce Car. Well not quite. A 1.2 Micra S !! I did get a bit of stick on the Sunday morning, but I think they believed me when I said it was Caroline‟s pride and joy….lol. (Hmmmmm will get you for that one Barry, Ed.) The morning dawned cool but there were clear blue sky‟s over Otterburn as crews got ready in the service area on the airstrip. However as we lined up at the first control the black clouds appeared over the hill. We were on slick tyres with little cuts in but other crews (our class rival being one) had time to change to intermediates.
The 6mile road section gave time for me to weave about and get some heat into the tyres but the drizzle was now starting to dampen the tar. In the first stage we had noted in the recce that the roads were dirty and quite mossy in places, “sh*ty” was Caroline‟s interpretation in the notes (Well it didn‟t look like moss and I never heard you describe it as moss on the recce, tell it like it is. Ed) The first few miles the rear tyres had cooled and struggled to get grip, I thought we were loosing time but it turned out were 10th fastest, 6 seconds behind class leader Gareth White in a C2 max.
Tyneside stages saw Peter Taylor finish 6th Oa (1st in class), Barry & Michael Lindsay 13th OA (1st in class), Geoffrey Harkness & Caroline Lodge were 33rd OA (5th in class). At the Solway Coast Barry & Michael Lindsay were 7th Oa (1st in class), James McWhir 22nd (7th in class) & Phil & Caroline Jobson 30th (8th in class). At the Richard Burns, Keith Taylor retired while Peter Taylor came 7th OA.
By Barry Lindsay
The Solway Coast was a new rally in the AS Performance NE tarmac championship for 2011. With very few crews knowing what the surface of the stages were like, but the event was advertised as having 8 mile of loose in the 40 stage miles.
Three cars represented Spadeadam in the 43 entries. Barry & Michael Lindsay seeded at 8 in the 106 after some body repairs after coming together with a Focus WRC on the Tyneside only two weeks before. Phil & Caroline Jobson were at 22 in ‘snowy’ the Mk2, then James McWhir was navigating Michael Hunter in the Lada Samara at 32
The scrutineering and service area was in the base near Dundrennan, with two stages with a mile road section between, the layout was good and compact.
Stage one was slippy from overnight rain and with the first half tree lined it wouldn’t get any sun. Most crews went out on tarmac tyres with a treaded pattern. Barry & Michael getting 6m 08 would be joint class lead with a C2 Max. Phil & Caroline got 6m 44 despite a spin and a stall in the slippy conditions. Michael & James got 7m 07 thinking the new clutch was slipping but then realised it was just spinning the wheels. Straight into stage 2 this contained a couple of sections of gravel. The first a section along a field with a right over a crest then a gate. It caught a few crews out including Barry & Michael who were well up the bank, they also had a spin and had to reverse on a hairpin, 7m 33. Michael & James getting 8m34 while Phil & Caroline picked up two punctures on the gravel section and got a stage maximum.
By Phil Jobson
After continuous rain showers in the days beforehand, Sunday 14th August dawned dry and sunny. This relatively new round of the North of England Tarmac Championship had attracted fewer competitors but there were lots of questions on the forums about the best tyre choice.
Organisers Solway Car Club put on two cracking stages with lots of variety from tight twisty sections beneath trees with water draining off making the tarmac slippery, to flat out wide concrete aprons and significant mileage sections of compacted gravel loose or broken tarmac loose sections. Not all competitors were happy with the loose, though Snowy revelled on it. Some resorted to using worn gravel tyres. Four loops of the two identical stages, meant times would tumble through the day.
Over the cattle grid
On August 4th Spadeadam hosted ‘The North East and Cumbrian Motor Club’s get together’. We invited EMMU rescue unit to show us some of what they can do.
..is Back!
This month it’s SMC’s 2010 number 4 driver
What car do you rally ? Vauxhall Corsa 1.6 (the same car for the last 16 years)
How long have you been rallying and what was your first event ?
About 18 years, before that I sprinted and hillclimbed for 7 or 8 years, and still do occasionally. The first rally I did was on the 14MU site (Kingmoor park) in a 1400 Nova with Nigel navigating. We were doing quite well until the front wheel parted company on a corner, but we got the wheel back and borrowed some studs from the other wheels to let us complete the stage.
Geoffrey & Nigel Harkness14 M.U. Carlisle(1994)
This month, at Crail – Peter Taylor took the Clio to his first rally victory.
Greystoke – Barry Lindsay & Caroline Lodge finished 11th Oa (2nd in class) while finishing 2nd in the upto 1400 class Chris Taylor navigated Jonny Brass to 18th O/A.
ALM Stages – Peter Taylor finished 27th O/A (1st in class)
Spadeadam Motor Club 
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