Rally Plans Underway for the BIG County ….
2012 winners, Quintin Milne and Martin Forrest
In two months time, the county of Perthshire will host one of its biggest annual sporting events, the Colin McRae Forest Stages Rally, which will be run on Saturday 5th October.
Attracting up to 12,000 visitors to this one day event, it creates quite a logistical headache for the amateur organising team from Coltness Car Club.
However, the CCC team, known throughout Scottish motorsport as ‘The Bears’, have no fears of such a challenge. They have been organising this event since 1994, with next year marking the 20th anniversary of the rally.
First run in 1994, the rally was based in Galashiels and used those fabulous stages along the Tweed Valley which are now no longer available for motor sport. The rally then moved to a Lanark base and found new roads and forests in the Dumfries & Galloway region before moving to the City of Perth in the year 2002.
Last year, the team switched the Rally base and HQ to Aberfeldy to be closer to the forest stages, and the quiet town of Aberfeldy will once again thrum to the sound of car engines and excited voices come early October.
Working closely with the Forestry Commission the team at Coltness Car Club have come up with a compact route based on Aberfeldy comprising six Special Stages incorporating some of the best known, and most feared, forest tests in the UK including Errochty and Craigvinean.
There is one major change to this year’s event. Although still a counter in the National ARR Craib Scottish Rally Championship, this year’s Colin McRae Stages will be the penultimate round, and not the final round as it has been in recent years. This was due to a change in the calendar of events earlier this year which added a new event to the series which will now take place in Galloway later in the month.
That means the title of Scottish Rally Champion may not be decided on this year’s event as has been the case in recent years. This change bodes well for spectators, as competitors go flat out for a final boost to their points tally before deciding on tactics for the final round.
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