Aquarius 2004

Thanks to all competitors and to those who offered to marshal on this year's Aquarius Rally.

The Aquarius Rally 2004 took place on Saturday 7 February. It was a round of the ESACC Road Rally Championship and took in over 90 miles of roads in Fife, Perth & Kinross and Clackmannan, starting from Kirkcaldy and finishing near Glenfarg.

Well, at least that was the intention. At the start, a few flakes of powdery snow were blowing through the air and maybe that was a warning. And anyway, like Thomas the Tank Engine said about snow: "Silly soft stuff. Snow can't stop me!" And if you don't know the rest of that particular story, you just MUST get a copy of the book.

So a disappointing count of 11 crews left the Fife Retail Park in Kirkcaldy and flew around some great roads in the south of Fife. Roads that had never seen a rally in at least 20 years.

The rally was effectively divided into two parts, joined by a transport section. In the first part, National B Open crew Douglas Smith and Iain Craven managed a clean sheet. In the Non-Expert class, Alan & Steve Cusack lost 6 minutes on the first section, and that lost them their chance. Jim & Graeme Rintoul dropped four on section 2 and that was their biggest time penalty an any section of the evening. the two crews ended the first part of the rally with one code dropped each, but the Rintoul having dropped 6 minutes fewer. There were just two novice crews too. Gordon Ritchie and Claire Wood were the better on the night, dropping just one code and dropping 3 minutes.

A Clubsport rally followed the National B, and there were four starters. Lock Horsburgh and 12 year-old son Craig cleaned the Fife part of the event, but it was a really close thing. Joshua Dwek / Ruairidh Waddell were just one minute late throughout the first seven sections, and Derek McLean / Andrew Brougham just two minutes down. James Patterson & David Drysdale-Wilson were the lowest finishers, but had a perfectly honourable mention in dispatches - just a single code missed and three minutes lateness. That was the same as the winners of the Novice class in the Nat B rally, so no shame incurred.

The real winner on the night - as the prelude inferred - was the weather. As the crews started the second half of the event, the route would take them through Perthshire and skirt into Clackmannanshire. Some excellent roads were in prospect. But the first section took them over the hill road to Cleish, and the snow came tumbling down. First the Cusacks slid into a dyke, bending their offside front wing. They were quite lucky, though. Their Nova bounced back onto the single-track road and they got afely to the bottom of the hill. Event secretary Malcolm Mactavish had gone a little way up the hill to take photos of the crews and eventually decided that it might be wise to get off it before the road got too bad. Crawling down at a snail's pace, his Espace slid side-ways into a deep ditch. Stuck. A while later, headlights appeared. "The recovery crew," he though. But no, it was Jason Ferry's Lancia Delta. It went straight on into the ditch, fortunately stopping a couple of metres from the Espace. Then came news that Open Class contenders Douglas Smith/Iain Craven had put their Golf off the road on the next section.

This was clearly getting out of hand and it was decided that the rally should be stopped at control 9. The crews made their way to the finish venue at Glenfarg where it was agreed that the results would be based upon sections 1-7 (the half-way card collection at the transport section). All the cars that took an off-road excursion were extracted by the closing car / recovery crew to whom eternal thanks will be given.

Silly soft stuff? Pass me the Kendal Mint Cake ...