Shane Gamble and Julia Perry Showing Dunoon Battle Scars!

Seven classic minis made the trip to Scotland for this year’s Argyll rally, but only five were registered for the HRCR Mini Cup. The old Stager championship had an additional Ford Escort RS2000 running, writes Clive King.

Recce of the stages were Thursday and Friday morning, but all the mini crews completed their two passes of each stage by end of play Thursday. The rally started Friday evening with seven stages, the first two were spectator stages around Dunoon Town centre, with hundreds of local spectators watching despite Scotland playing their second game in the World Cup.

Points towards the championships are awarded for Friday and again for Saturday. There would be no playing yourself in; it would be go from the first stage. Shane Gamble with Julia Perry and also Clive King with Bob Ward, competing together for the first time in15 years, set quickest time by only one second ahead of Craig King with Aggie Foster (swapping her usual seat in a Triumph TR4 for an equally claustrophobic Mini).

Second run Shane took a two second lead, with Clive, Craig and Andrew OHanlon with Kevin Hogon setting a time of 1 min 3 seconds. The next stage was Tarson Dam a fast, well surfaced road with many blind corners and crests.

Shane and Clive set a time of 5.21 followed by Craig on 5.33. Eric Davies with Russell Joseph were pleased to have finally got rid of their bad luck and were setting quick times. Clive was having issues, Bobs intercom was cutting out and would continue for the rest of the rally.

He also felt that the rear suspension was not having its usual grip level, it was discovered after the evening stages that a rear damper mounting had come out. The following stage was a narrow bumpy road that would be used twice.

Shane took fastest with a time 2.57, Craig was next with 3.03 the rest were all within seconds of each other. Darkness came for the re run and as expected the “Prince of darkness”, Craig, pushed with a quick time, the rest were just behind.

It was straight to the “meat” of the Friday stages with a run in darkness over a stage, with narrow road climbing up the side of a hill, over the top onto moorland and down the other side. Craig set a time of 5.49 with Shane just piping Clive with a time of 6.04. This time was all the more remarkable as Aggie was feeling ill.

The final stage ran alongside a lake and again very demanding bumpy road, Craig continued to pull away from the rest of the field, and drove most of it without pace notes, as Aggie continued to feel ill. He managed to take a massive 27 seconds off Shane.

The run back was uneventful and most crews were back for about 1am. Craig and Aggie were leading and would take maximum points for Friday. Shane and Julia were second and had also discovered a rear mounting damper bolt had come out.

Clive and Bob were in 3rd but nearly a minute behind Craig.

Andrew with Kevin had had a trouble-free run were next, and pleased to have made it through the difficult evening stages were Eric with Russell.

It was an early start on Saturday, as everyone had been re seeded. Shane managed to fix his car by using a front damper pin cut down. Clive went a different way, by using a rear wheel stud screwed in. The intercom issue would have to be managed.

With another loop of 85 miles and a dry sunny day was forecast before the one and only service at lunch time. Stage 8, Clive was on a push to try and take time lost back, but Craig and Shane were also determined to stay ahead.

Clive stopped the clocks on 5.48 Shane and Craig were within a second of each other but 9 and 10 seconds back respectively.

Aggie Foster Back On-Song Guides Craig King

Thankfully Aggie was feeling much better and was back to pushing Craig faster. Eric and Russell were now enjoying the fantastic stages upping their pace, with Andrew and Kevin waiting for one of the top three to falter, but trying to keep Eric at bay.

The next stage Clive manged to pull another 10 seconds out of Craig, but Shane dropped another 11 seconds to the two minis. Stage 10 was where the event lead changed.

Craig pushing to stay a head got the back wheels on the grass after landing over a jump and spun, getting stuck in deep mud facing the opposite direction. Always the gentleman he told Aggie to get out and push, but it wasn’t until a man popped his head over the fence and helped that he got out.

As they were turning around Shane came through on a charge, Aggie was covered in mud but they were still in it, although they had dropped 3 minutes. Further through the stage at a chicane Shane went a little too quickly into it, hitting a bale hard with the front end, Craig following shot through on the inside.

Shane only dropped a few seconds, but had damaged the front of the car, he was very lucky as the oil cooler had been pushed into the starter motor, without it leaking. Clive and Bob unaware of the carnage that had happened, continued to push setting fastest time to move into the lead.

The final stage on the first loop Clive continued to pull time out of the rest of the field. Back into a short service Shane was making repairs. Craig’s car was unscathed apart from covered in mud.

The final loop had 6 stages to complete and Clive still held a lead with Shane 2nd. Andrew had moved to 3rd with Craig 37 seconds behind, and determined to catch him. Craig went on maximum attack to try and take time off Andrew, but Andrew was determined to stay in 3rd.

Although Craig pulled a few seconds back Andrew managed to stay in front but not before he had a couple of moments. Eric continued to set competitive times but his target was to get to the finish which they did and thoroughly enjoyed the event.

Just a head of Eric, Paul Holmes and Elizabeth Beezley in their RS2000 taking maximum points in the Stage Masters championship on both days. Clive and Bob slotted into their old partnership and made a clean sweep of all the stages on Saturday to finish 1st in class and 53rd overall, nearly 2 minutes in front of Shane and Julia.

All crews enjoyed the event only problem was the rallying got in the way of more socialising, and boy did we do some socialising.

The Questmead prize for the best placing over seeding on the whole event went to Clive moving up 45 places.

Andrew O’Hanlons donated prizes of Snap-On products were won by Shane Gamble on Friday and Craig King on Saturday with Eric Davies and Andrew O’Hanlon picking up the Exol Oil for their efforts.

Clive King Taking the Honours with Bob Ward Alongside