Kirk al dy win sat rare Leuchars event

Granite Stages at Leuchars Rally By John Fife Organiser: Aberdeen & DMC When: May 26 Where: Leuchars Station, Fife Championships: Scottish Tarmack Championship, Junior 1000 Ecosse Challenge Stages: 10/11 Starters: 50/13

Alan Kirkaldy and Eoghan Anderson won an action-packed Granite Stages at Leuchars Rally last Saturday in their Ford Escort Mk2. Although the duo were never seriously challenged, they were never able to relax either.

Gordon Morrison was holding second place until his Subaru’s exhaust manifold broke, and Alistair Inglis was lying third when the gearbox failed in his Lotus Exige.

That moved Ian Forgan up into second place first time out with a newly built clubman-spec Subaru Impreza and Ian Paterson into third in another Subaru. Both John Rintoul and Tom Morris failed to finish with steering problems and Lawrence Whyte whacked a lamp post with his Fiesta R5.

Alan Gardiner finished fourth overall in his Escort Mk1 holding off the attentions of the Mk2 of Colin Gemmell. However, the ‘battle of the day’ featured an epic scrap between the Fiesta R2 of Finlay Retson – seeking some ‘Tarmac’ running ahead of the next British Rally Championship round in Belgium – and the Citroen C2 of Michael Harbour. They finished sixth and seventh respectively.

In the Junior event run simultaneously at the huge MOD facility, Johnnie Mackay was having a serious tussle with Andrew Blackwood until the leader’s Citroen broke its gearbox. That allowed Mackay to seize the lead in his Suzuki Alto, and stave off the efforts of equally wellmatched Lewis Haining and Oliver Hunter.