Kingdom Stages Rally, 3rd November 2012 ….
Having won the Summer Stages at Crail in June, Alistair and Greg Inglis returned to Crail at the weekend and did it again on the Kingdom Stages. They were lucky though, the Lancer surviving a head butt with a lorry tyre marker and they finished just half a minute clear of Bruce Edwards in the Darrian.
As the damp stages dried in the bitterly cold wind, the Darrian’s times tumbled in the afternoon, but the slow start allowed Inglis to stay safe. First time out for nearly two years Warren Fairbairn was third in his Evo3 and just held off Quintin ‘the Entertainer’ Milne. To all intents and purposes, Milne set about Crail with no intention of winning, more concerned with putting on a tyre smoking, pirouetting show. Perhaps the biggest surprise was that he still managed to finish fourth!
Ross Fernie was a more sober fifth overall and concerned mainly about points rather than prizes. He needed to keep some air between himself and Jim Sharp to determine who was going to win the overall Scottish Tarmack Championship title. As it turned out, Ross did the business with Jim finishing ninth and just missing out on the national accolade by 3 points!
Stuart Baillie was sixth having finally finished the Subaru rebuild which commenced after the car caught fire two years ago. Chris Abel was top 2WD in the Renault Clio just holding off Nick Runcie to claim seventh overall by 11 seconds. It was Runcie’s first time out for four years, but he had lost none of his exuberance. Perhaps that’s why Chris just pipped him.
Ross Marshall finished second in Class 2 in his Escort MkII behind Runcie with Matthew Kesson rounding off an encouraging first season of rallying with third place first time out in a Fiesta R2, while Jack Stewart was the solitary finisher in Class 1 in his Nissan Micra.
Alan Gardiner was in the hunt over the early stages, but gearbox failure stopped him on the penultimate stage while Chris Collie retired in a more spectacular fashion – rolling his borrowed Lancer, and Stevie Brown’s Subaru broke its diff.
Results:
1, Alistair Inglis/Greg Inglis (Mitsubishi Evo 5) 62m 01s
2, Bruce Edwards/Jim Smith (Darrian T9) 62m 34s
3, Warren Fairbairn/Derek Millar (Mitsubishi Evo3) 62m 43s
4, Quintin Milne/Martin Forrest (Mitsubishi Evo9) 62m 57s
5, Ross Fernie/John Young (Subaru Impreza Sti) 63m 18s
6, Stuart Baillie/Dave Cranston (Subaru Impreza) 64m 28s
7, Chris Abel/Will Philip (Renault Clio) 64m 51s
8, Nick Runcie/Mark Runciman (Citroen Saxo) 65m 02s
9, Jim Sharp/Craig Wallace (Subaru Impreza) 65m 15s
10, Ross Marshall/Phil Coulby (Ford Escort) 65m 21s
Classes:
1, Jack Stewart/Kyle Livingston (Nissan Micra) 81m 44s
2, Scott MacBeth/Ross MacDonald (Vauxhall Nova) 70m 30s
3, Nick Runcie/Mark Runciman (Citroen Saxo) 65m 02s
4, Chris Abel/Will Philip (Renault Clio) 64m 51s
5, George Bryson/Jaqueline Bryson (Ford Escort MkII) 67m 58s
6, Alistair Inglis/Greg Inglis (Mitsubishi Evo 5) 62m 01s