Day Three: Coylumbridge - Talisker
Day Three saw the rally depart via Aviemore, heading north-west through barren, dramatically beautiful mountain passes towards the Applecross headland and the narrow twisting Pass of the Cattle - bathed in beautiful sunshine. Towards the end of the day crews crossed over to Skye via the new road bridge. The leg finished at Talisker Distillery, where a tricky driving test was the undoing of Gold medal contenders Richard Fenhalls and Heather Milne-Taylor, just one second too slow to retain their status.
Unlucky, too, were Lt. Col. Denton Udall and Susanne Evans, out on their first-ever rally. They'd held onto Gold status all the way to Skye Airport. But a slow drive on this complex test dropped them down to Silver.
Other Gold medal contenders had a good day overall. The Mercedes Benz of Ian Crammond and Caroline Ward has been returning consistently good results, posting the lowest number of overall penalties at the end of each of the first three days. Paul Wignall may count himself lucky still to be on Gold, though. He had a tough time with the Alfa's gears at the start of the evening test at Talisker - somehow the car didn't want to play the game. He finished just within the leeway needed to retain his Gold. But it was close.
Pass of the Trucks
It's sometimes sheer good fortune that prevents a rally grinding to a halt. Competitors could all have found themselves with nowhere to go on the Pass of the Cattle this year - and the problem was averted by just a couple of minutes when a 7.5 ton box truck dropped off the side of the road, wedging itself into a brook. Course opening car with Stuart Collins and Clifford England had no room to pass: the only thing to do was build rocks into the ditch on the right hand side to widen the road sufficiently. They had to work quickly or the rally - about three-quarters of an hour behind - would be queuing up and losing time. Before they could finish, though, a fuel tanker arrived, hitched a chain to the box truck and hauled it away. The road was finally clear with just two minutes to spare. Before Collins and England pulled away, they were caught by Car 7 - 'That damned Alvis that seems to be able to drive faster than I can in a modern car', as Collins puts it. With all their leeway eroded, the Course Openers had quite a task on their hands to retain their 'first on the road' status. Stuart also wryly reports that the legend on the side of the unfortunate box truck was 'Delivering Care'
C-Type follies
A couple of days ago we mentioned the lack of wet weather gear on Dougal Fisken's C-Type Jaguar. Someone casually asked them yesterday if they had a drainage hole to cope with flooding. ȁYes', they answered. It looks like they need a mesh across it, though: the stopwatch fell out through it on one of Tuesday's regularities, costing them a packet of lost time while they went back to look for it.
Keeper's Delight
1967 Triumph Spitfire Mklll: Denton Udall & Susanne Evans Denton has owned this car since 1969, and it has only covered 18,000 miles from new - with good reason. It was bought new by a lighthouse keeper, who perhaps not suprisingly put very few miles on the clock. In his turn, Denton was posted overseas with the army, so the Spitfire has spent many of the past 34 years waiting for its chance to shine. Welcome to the real world, Spit. We hope you enjoy all that the Malts has to offer!
