"The week leading up to The Border Counties Rally was surreal. It snowed the previous weekend and whilst the temperature warmed and most expected the snow to vanish within a couple of days the snow had other ideas and stubbornly hung on. The snow seemed to have "bonded" with the stages and in fact stage 2 was cancelled due to the "difficult" conditions.

Ally Mackay commented "I've heard a foot of snow being called many things but difficult is a severe understatement" After the damage sustained to the car during the Malcolm Wilson Rally, TEG Sport had a very busy week. The complete wiring loom was removed from the car and eventually the electrical failure was traced to a relay. The roughness of the (Malcolm Wilson) stages caused serious damage to the underside of the car and the team were under pressure to have the car ready in such a short space of time.

On the road section to the first stage the BARDON / Ross-Shire Engineering sponsored car developed a distinct "whine" and the crew knew or were at least pretty sure it was coming from the turbocharger bearing. As expected the car was down on power and got progressively worse mid-stage resulting in complete failure come stage end. Changing the turbocharger takes something like 30-45 minutes so it was rally over after only one stage. Surprisingly we had traversed the stage fifth fastest but it was a demoralized crew that took an early bath.

Said Rally Ali: "It was a big mistake to do the Malcolm Wilson so close to the Border Counties. The car took a terrible hammering actually flattening the sump guard and splitting the sump. We had a piece of foam between the sump guard & the sump and this got compressed stopping the oil from leaking. After that one rally the underside of the car looks like it has done a whole season. We were very lucky not to have an engine failure. We also flattened the exhaust and this we believe caused back pressure resulting in the turbocharger bearing being overheated.

There was no evidence of turbo damage in pre-rally checks but on the run in to the first stage the "whine" became obvious and we knew the writing was on the wall. Our plan of attack had been to go "balls out" on the first stage leaving the rest to catch up over the tricky snowy stages that were to follow but the turbo had cried enough and to be honest we were lucky to get to the end of the stage"

"I'm not going to do any more rallies other than ANCRO events as it's the ANCRO championship that matters to us. My local event (the Snowman) ruined things for Rallye Sunseeker and the Malcolm Wilson has ruined things for the Borders. Instead we will concentrate on the championship and just do some tarmac testing prior to the Manx which is one of my all time favourite events "