WEST CONTINUES TITLE DEFENCE
Having flirted with victory in the opening two rallies, and after a difficult start to the season with engine trouble, it was third time lucky for Chris West as he was victorious in a tightly-contested Knockhill Stages event.
“We didn’t think we could win this one, but then we got sucked into a battle,” declared the reigning champion after he denied John Marshall a glorious winning return to the championship. West snatched a lead he would not lose with two stages of the 10 remaining to finally seal his first overall win of the season.
Changeable winter weather played its part throughout the day in Fife.
Overnight puddles became icy patches around the Tarmac sections of the circuit, local brothers Andrew and Alan Kirkaldy the biggest losers from the treacherous opening two stages. Alan – winner at a snow-hit Anglesey visit earlier in the year – would suffer the ignominy of being the event’s first retirement after skidding off into a weighty bale lining the stage. “The impact has punctured the radiator,” was his diagnosis, and his new Ford Fiesta R5 went no further. The weather also gave brother Andrew a tyre selection headache on only his second ever rally. The 2005 British GT champion opted for a wet compound, but slid 26 seconds adrift in a Ford Escort Mk2. A surge would follow, but the damage had already been done.
Another Scot took command initially. Scottish Rally Championship frontrunner Donnie Macdonald narrowly reeled off three stage wins from the opening four in his Mitsubishi Lancer E9, only West’s stage three effort enough to break the trend.
The latter still sat 14 seconds adrift, which could have been more as a stall cresting a bump on stage one cost West “at least” four seconds. The Peugeot 306 Maxi fired back up after several hesitations.
Mother nature intervened again before stage five as sleet coated the circuit following a heavy downpour, turning the rally order on its head.
West retaliated by purchasing a new pair of wet Michelins, while the damp surface suited Macdonald’s heavy Lancer less so, as the lead Mitsubishi fell down the order. Out of the podium places by the penultimate stage, gearbox gremlins ended his day prematurely after such a strong start.
Four beneficiaries became locked in a battle for the top spot over the final four stages, led by an excelling Marshall on his first MN outing in six months – the first run of the season for his Subaru Impreza which erupted into flames at Snetterton earlier in the year. “If you’d said I’d be leading the rally before this morning I’d have been delighted,” he said, as West ramped up the pressure on his sixsecond advantage.
That gap became one second on the following run before the inevitable arrived on the eighth stage, as West and co-driver Keith Hounslow became the third leaders of the rally despite alternator troubles giving them cause for concern.
“We had to power down the headlights a bit to protect it,” said Hounslow after the pair extended their lead to seven seconds on the penultimate stage, helped by their closest rivals getting embroiled in an on-track battle.
Despite the fright, West hung on to give Smith and Jones’ engines it’s first series win. Marshall trailed by seven seconds, while five stage wins on the bounce propelled a defiant Andrew Kirkaldy from sixth to the podium as the conditions turned in his favour.
“When you look back, it should have been our day,” he lamented. “It was brilliant, but it was just a shame about the time we lost on those first two stages. I made a few errors, but it was also the tyres and weather not being on our side.”
Taylor Gibb felt at home on the Scottish Tarmac when holding third with his modified Lancer E9, but twice encountering a defensive Marshall at the merge late in the rally scuppered his chances of a podium finish.
He would finish fourth ahead of another Mitsubishi of 29th seed Allan Smith, while Class C winner Ross Hunter finished a fine sixth in his nimble Peugeot 205.
Ross Mcfadzean’s Subaru Impreza STI was next up ahead of the Class B-winning Vauxhall Corsa of Steven Hay, the top 10 rounded out by Barry Morris and Mike Taylor who finished on identical times.
Nigel Feeney had a less fruitful return a year on from his second place finish at the same rally last season. The Mini Countryman suffered a boost issue that sent him out of control while on the throttle, putting him into a barrier and out of the rally instantly.