After their stunning result on the RBS International Manx Rally in Isle of Man last month, Scotsmen Alistair Tough and Alistair Mackay were looking forward to getting back into the forests especially with the next round of the ANCRO championship being in such classic forests as Crychan and Brechfa in mid Wales.

The battle at the top of the championship is very close and with some of the top runners absent from this event, the TEG Sport duo were keen to get some good points on the board. However, this was not to be as the BARDON / Ross-Shire Engineering sponsored car was constantly held up throughout the rally as the crew explained.

Ally Mackay: " We were seeded at car 10 on the road and Paul Wedgbury was at car 12.. He complained to the organizers about his seeding arguing that he was in a faster car, was local, knew the stages and that he should not be seeded behind slower GrpN cars. The organizers in their wisdom reseeded him so he was slotted in two cars earlier – in front of us !! I queried the logic of this with the organizers and was advised that it was allowed on the grounds of safety. I also pointed out that Alistair (Tough) has always been quicker than Paul even though Paul is in more powerful machinery and did not expect that to change just because Paul was on his home turf.

On the first twelve miler we caught him three miles in and had to follow him for at least five miles, the dust was horrendous and it's the first time I have ever been scared in a car with Alistair. How he could see where he was going is beyond me but eventually Paul pulled over to let us past and the pace to the end of the stage was blistering. We finished the stage in 18th o/a and dropped a whopping 32 seconds to the class winner.

A clean run through the second stage saw us return to service in 13th overall. We decided to let the class leaders go as they were not registered for the championship and concentrate on ANCRO Championship & Subaru points and set off on the next loop confident that this was possible. However, a stall on stage three and catching a slower car fairly close to the end of stage four hampered the charge and we returned to service in 11th position but only 18 seconds adrift from Rob Smith in 9th.

With three stages to go, 14, 9 and 12 miles respectively, it was not going to be easy but not impossible. About halfway in we came across Barry Johnson who had rolled on a deceptive left 8 and Alistair was saying that he had seen Stewart but not Barry and did I think we should stop at the next radio point. He was not fully concentrating and misheard the tightening left 7. He managed to slow down a bit and attempt the corner but the back end of the Pirelli shod car spun round coming to a halt with the two rear wheels over a ditch. With the car perched on the bank there was no grip for the front wheels so I had to undo my belts and get out of the car to push us back on. We seemed to be there for ages although the next car never came past and I was quite surprised that we had only dropped 51 seconds to Rob. After that we basically cruised to the finish and try and salvage as many points as possible."

On being asked how his (dislocated) shoulder had been, Alistair Tough said "The shoulder stood up surprisingly well, but it's bloody sore today. I wrenched it a wee bit when I got the spare wheel out of the car and thought for a minute I had dislocated it again but it held up good. Theres no point in trying to lay blame or harbouring any bad feelings, it was just one of those things. Paul didn't hold us up deliberately, it was a mechanical problem and because of the dust he could not see us behind him. If he had, I have no doubt he would have pulled over sooner. Occasionally, you have a bad day and ours was on Saturday. Obviously, I'm disappointed for my sponsors & team etc. but we're only halfway through the championship and we are still in the hunt."