Kingdom Stages 2004

The Kingdom Stages Rally at Crail 2004 ran on Saturday 2 November.

The event provided 44 miles of fast flowing stages on the roads and runways of Crail Airfield in Fife, the best preserved wartime airfield in the country. There were almost 90 entries - as usual, The Kingdom was one of the best-supported asphalt events in Scotland.

The rally was characterised by wet and greasy asphalt. The prevailing wind had taken a day off and, whereas everyone thought that the stages would dry out as the day wore on, they remained quite treacherous. Even four-wheel-drive crews found the going difficult. But Tom Morris & Colin Harkness showed how a neat style was the most effective, dominating from start to finish in their Metro 6R4. A hiccup on the opening stage with an tight chicane - later opened up when it was destroyed by George Anderson's Evo IV - was the only drama of their day. Fastest on each of the first five tests, they opened up a good lead and, with two stages remaining, the Metro had a lead of almost a minute. John & Jim Rintoul - winners in 2002- were fastest on the penultimate stage - but only by two seconds. The two crews tied the seventh. With darkness (and rain) falling, the final stage was cancelled in the interests of safety. So the top slot went to Morris.

Ricky Wheeler showed that he had lost none of his pace, taking third place overall in his Mark 2 Escort Warrior. Considering the conditions, it was quite remarkable to find two 2WD Escorts in the top four positions, the slower of the two piloted by Alan Gardiner.

The Rintouls had a great consolation prize, though. The Kingdom was the final round of the Beatson’s Building Supplies Scottish Tarmack Rally Championship. In the navigators' Championship, Jim Rintoul arrived at Crail with a two-point lead over Fergus Gray. Kriss Tennant was the leading driver in the Drivers' table, a point clear of the other Rintoul brother. John Marshall was 2 points behind John and was a potential threat.

Gray and his driver - John Marshall - finished a place behind the Rintoul's Evo, and Jim was Champion navigator. Tennant spun more times than he could remember on the opening stage, and then drove three quarters of the second stage on a flat front n/s tyre after clipping a tyre and ripping out the sidewall. Despite setting similar times to Scott Crawford from then on, he was too far off the lead to catch up. And Marshall couldn't quite find the pace to get ahead at Crail either.

At the end of the day's sport, the gap between Rintoul and Marshall was 45 seconds in Rintoul's favour. So it was Glenrothes MSC member John Rintoul who became Scottish Tarmack Rally Champion 2004. Kris Tennant was second in class but won the Class 1 championship.