On what was one of the hottest weekends of the year, Scotsmen Alistair Tough & Alistair Mackay made the long journey south from Inverness to Swansea for the Swansea Bay Rally, round five of the Subaru Group N Masters which formed part of the MSA ANCRO Gravel Rally Championship.

With Saturday forecast as being another hot day, the problem was always going to be the dust and the crew were hoping that a gap of two minutes between cars was to be been applied, rather than the statutory sixty seconds but it wasn’t to be initially. With the predicted rain not materialising on Friday night, the Bardon Aggregates/RossShire Engineering sponsored car was hampered badly on the first stage with thick billowing dust. The second stage was almost as bad and worse still, the crew were stopped mid stage.

Alistair Tough takes up the story:
“Like a number of other crews, we were disappointed that cars were started initially at one minute intervals and were hoping to use some penalty free lateness up to overcome the problem but we were prevented from doing this. There was a very slight breeze but it was intermittent and hardly shifted the dust at all. It was like being on safari and we needed the wipers on to shift the stoor! Dust is actually worse than fog as it causes false perceptions and is not consistent. We were in the ditch twice and decided that it was just far too risky so drove to the end of the stage accordingly “ But further drama was to beset the TEG Sport car on stage two and it returned to first service in a lowly 25th position.

Alistair Mackay elaborates…:
“On stage two, Walters Arena, we were approaching a fast downhill hairpin left when we were flagged down by the marshals indicating us to stop. We slowed right down and as we rounded the corner could see that the car in front, Stephen Petch, was also stopped and his navigator was out of the car with his fire extinguisher as the car in front of him, Paul Wedgbury was on fire. However, the fire was all but out and we were then instructed to drive through to the end of the stage. We followed Stephen out but because the dust was so bad we dropped back a bit and after about half a mile or so, we were approaching a Right 7 when Alistair suddenly swerved to the left. At that point, another car overtook us at full competitive speed and it shook us up a little. We were concerned about how this had happened and brought the attention to the various championship representatives at the end of the stage. It turned out there was a misunderstanding with the marshals on the junction and the stage commander but we were lucky not to have been part of a huge accident”

At service, and with tensions running high, a number of crews got together and suggested to the organisers that in the interests of safety, the two minute interval between cars should be implemented and as a result, the organisers agreed and many of the problems apparent in the opening loop disappeared. The result was the Pirelli shod car was back on the pace and climbed the leaderboard returning to second service in 11th position. With stage mileages having to be reduced for the final loop, Tough and Mackay battled it out and eventually finished in 13th overall, 6th in class and 2nd Subaru.

Alistair Tough: “It’s been one of those weekends. Just about everything has been stacked up against us and although we thought we could reduce the deficit over the remaining 22 miles, our hopes were dashed when the last 16 mile stage was cancelled. Before the rally started, the mileage had already been cut from 70 miles to 63 so by losing the last stage, we effectively lost 20% of the rally and I think had we competed over the full distance, a better result could have been the outcome”.

But Alistair’s troubled weekend was still not over.

“After the rally, I left Swansea at 7.30pm, dropped one of the TEG Sport team at Carnforth and then Aly Mackay in Glasgow. At 3.30am I was passing Aviemore and only 15 miles from home when an over-friendly stag decided to step out in front of me. There was no way I could avoid it and it was collected at a fair speed demolishing the front of my wife’s three month old limited edition 2 litre Turbo Megane. Needless to say, she is not a happy bunny!”

The next round is the Park Systems Stages Rally based in Newton Stewart on September 9th.

Further details and information at www.rallyali.com or www.ancro.co.uk

Compiled and Distributed on behalf of Alistar Tough by Larry Carter, Cartersport Motorsport Media Services, PO Box 150, NORTHALLERTON, North Yorkshire DL6 3WZ