Aberfeldy Ready ….
Coltness Car Club is now putting the final touches to its long-planned event this weekend, the Colin McRae Forest Stages Rally at Aberfeldy on Saturday October 5th. The event itself is round 7 of the 8 round national ARR Craib Scottish Rally Championship, Scotland’s premier motor sporting championship series and is also a counter in the UK-wide national Mintex British Historic Rally Championship which will attract crews from all over the UK in their classic rally cars.
This year’s rally will feature six Special Stages in the forests around Perthshire and has attracted top drivers from all around Scotland and the UK, but there will be rather more to this event this year.
On the Friday night (Oct 4th), the rally will host the Scottish launch of a new book about their late club member and World Rally Champion, Colin McRae. Produced by photographer Colin McMaster and writer David Evans, the book is titled simply ‘McRae, just Colin’ and copies will be on sale at Rally HQ in Breadalbane Community Campus in the centre of Aberfeldy on Friday evening.
The lavishly illustrated book covers Colin’s life from his early days to his World Championship forays and will be a must-have addition for all rally fans’ bookshelves. The book is priced at £39.99 and only cash payments can be accepted as the club will have no facility for credit cards at the rally.
The organisers are also delighted to announce that a number of rather special guests have agreed to be at Rally HQ on the Friday evening and will be available for signing autographs, or even book signing.
The guests will be available from:
5 pm – 6 pm
Four times Scottish Rally Champion, David Bogie and top title contender Euan Thorburn
6 pm – 7 pm
Skeleton Gold winning Olympian Amy Williams and Sky TV F1 reporter Tony Jardine
7 pm – 8 pm
Scotland’s most successful Olympian Sir Chris Hoy and five times British Rally Champion Jim McRae
Derek Ringer will also be attending, but as yet, his ETA is unknown – well, he is a Co-driver after all! Derek was Colin’s co-driver in their 1995 World Championship title winning year.
Other rally merchandise will be on sale within Breadalbane Community Campus, so folks can come and browse at their leisure and meet the stars.
And as a rather more poignant tribute, outside the campus building on display will be Colin’s first competition car, his autotest Mini, and also the Vauxhall Nova which pitched him on to the world stage. It was his flamboyant antics in this Nova which first caught the eye of rally fans the world over, endeared him to a generation and from which a legend grew.
Amy Williams will actually be competing on the rally as she strives to gain her International Co-driver’s licence ahead of Wales Rally GB in November and she will co-drive for Tony Jardine.
Sir Chris Hoy will share Course Car duties with Jim McRae as they run ahead of the competitive field.
A long time fan of motor sport, and rallying in particular, Sir Chris was also a great fan of Britain’s first outright World Rally Champion in 1995. He hosted the recent BBC Television tribute to the late Colin McRae which was part of the company’s ‘Racing Legends’ series.
The rally itself will start from Aberfeldy town centre at 7.30 am with the first cars due to return from around 2.15 pm.
( More detailed Spectator Info will be put up on Wednesday )
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