16 Oct: Kames Gossip

Kames Rally, 29 September, 2013 … News and Gossip …

Harry Marchbank’s poor result on this event, because of his Maximum on the first stage when he broke a driveshaft, leaves him needing to beat Ben Crealey on the final two rounds to claim third overall in the Junior 1000 Championship. No easy task, but when I spoke to him on Mull, he was up for the fight!

John McClory appeared at Kames with a new shape 1600cc Ford Fiesta and finished fifth in the ‘Senior’ event but that wasn’t the point. This will be Stephen’s car next year when he graduates from the Junior 1000s. “It was previously a track car,” said John, “it was stripped out and had a cage in it when we bought it, so it was ideal for tarmac events, but that’s the dilemma, Stephen doesn’t know whether he wants to continue doing tarmac events next year, or switch to gravel.” Stephen has already driven the car. His Nissan Micra is more nimble around the Kames track than the Fiesta, but where the track opens out, he can get the foot down much more with the Ford. Over the same stage, the Fiesta was 6 secs quicker.

Another new Fiesta was the 2 litre ST of Ryan Weston. This ex Spanish club car has around 160 bhp and this was the first time out with the car but there were a couple of niggles. It wasn’t Ryan’s first time in the car though as he had spent a couple of days at Chris Birkbeck’s place in Yorkshire. He’s desperate to get into the woods and longer terms plans are for an R2, but first he’ll get experience in the ST. On the 10 stages (out of 16) which he completed he had two 2nd fastest times and six 3rd fastest.

Robert Irvine who finished 7th on the ’senior’ event had his son, Andy, competing for the first time as co-driver, although it won’t be long before the boy elbows the ol’man out of the driving seat, eh? For the second event in a row, the Peugeot 205 gear linkage broke, but Robert reckons he’s fixed it now.

Graeme Sherry was spotted at Kames lurking about and he informed me that he has his Peugeot 205 Challenge car up for sale. He fancies doing the BRC NGK Challenge next year and is looking at the possibility of using a Renault Clio.

And finally …

Is there no end to Steven Brown’s talents? Doctor, co-driver and now Bake-Off challenger. He turned up with a home made tasty treat at Kames, his own self-made lemon drizzle cake which he placed beside Rhona Dickie’s tin of life-sustaining and enhancing tablet. Given such a choice, the tablet disappeared first before folks were tempted to try their hand and tastebuds on the Flying Doctor’s culinary attempt. After sawing through the crust with a hacksaw and using an oxy acetylene torch on the cream filling, the cake actually disappeared pretty quickly. Actually, I was only kidding about the hacksaw though, Steven had thoughtfully provided a plastic knife (well, he is a doctor!) to cut slices. It was soft, succulent and extremely tasty. What will he bake for the next Kames?

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