COLIN CLARK
THE VOICE OF RALLYING “The MSA has set a precedent with this decision”
I’m back home at my kitchen table after a fabulously exciting Rally of Spain and I swear I can still hear them laughing in the service park in Salou.
And it’s not the laughter from the somewhat raucous Meeke-nagle celebration party that’s ringing around half of Europe and stretching its tentacles to the darkest corners of Stoke-on-trent. Nope, it’s the unbridled laughter of the world’s rallying community. You know that kind of response you get to, say, one of Billy Connolly’s genius stand-up routines: deep belly laughs, tears streaking the face and blurring the eyes.
Unable to catch a breath from the sheer force of laughter. Yes, that kind. The kind I witnessed all week in Spain and sadly it’s still going on. And the cause of this wondrous merriment? The seemingly completely out of touch judiciary who sit on the Motor Sport Council’s National Court. Those eminently qualified folk who found it in their wisdom to hand down a six-month competition ban and £1000 fine to former Scottish Rally champion Jock Armstrong for the heinous crime of bearing his hairy buttocks to a rally car being driven non-competitively.
It genuinely defies belief on a number of levels. Firstly, how the hell did this even get to court? Surely a quiet word and a stern telling off would have sufficed. Secondly, what kind of precedent does this now set?
Every future punishment handed down by this court will now quite rightly be benchmarked against Armstrong’s minor misdemeanour. They’ve created a rigid rod for their own backs that will cause serious discomfort for some time. They are going to have to start handing down 10-year bans for competitors and teams caught cheating. Class A drugs in your system on an event? Surely the only option now is to give the perps a lifetime ban? Sounds extreme, but it’s proportionate – something the Motor Sport Council’s court failed miserably to be when Jock Armstrong stood in front of them last week.
Listen, Armstrong was on the event as a marshal and we all respect the serious and professional job the legions of marshals do across the UK in support of British motorsport week in, week out. As a tabard-wearing marshal, you really can’t go bearing your bottom to mates on road sections and Jock should have been told off. But it’s the ridiculously high-handed, disproportionate response and somewhat pompous tone of the ruling that’s got folk in the UK, and in particular in Scotland, fired up and riled.
I came across a social media post from one of the world’s top drivers in Spain last weekend where he filmed and seemingly posted a video while driving a World Rally Car on a road section. This kind of behaviour is most certainly “highly detrimental to the interests of motorsport” and furthermore could “create a real risk of danger.” If mooning a mate gets you six months, filming and posting a selfie has to be, what? At least a year? Now that might upset this year’s World Rally Championship. And yes, I know: different judiciaries and different jurisdictions. But nevertheless, when we’ve wiped away those tears of laughter, some serious food for thought.