Kingdom Stages 2003

The Kingdom Stages Rally at Crail 2003 has been won and lost..

It 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 nearly 80 entries last year - one of the best in Scotland during 2002 - and for 2003, there were OVER 80 entries.

The event was a counter for the Scottish Tarmack, Scottish Borders Championships and the Ecosse 205 Autumn Cup.

The early leader of the event was last year's winners, John and Jim Rintoul, who won the opening stage by a second from John Bogie. But Bogie bit back on the second stage. Stuart McQueen won the stage finishing five seconds faster than the Fifers. But his lead wouldn't last long - his Metro 6R4 started to blow smoke early in the third stage. When the puff of smoke turned into a smokescreen, retiral was the only option. But he did make it to the end of the stage - and was the fastest by 6 seconds from Stuart McQueen's Subaru WRC. Allan Mackay / Paul Brown - who had matched Robin Hamilton's third-fastest time on stage 3 - got it wrong and rolled their Escort Cosworth several times. The 'high rollers' were taken to hospital for checks but were later released. Stage 4 was ultimately cancelled, and that was good news for Rintoul who had had a problem in the stage - the cancellation let him back into the rally. And back into the lead.

The event got back under way after the lunch break and Stuart McQueen took up the challenge, taking the fastest time in stage 5 by 8 seconds from Robin Hamilton's 6R4. Rintoul had lost a whole ten seconds to the Subaru, and with it the lead - McQueen was first overall by three seconds. Nobody could touch McQueen - he won all of the remaining stages. Mention must be made of Keith Davison from Middlesborogh, who came second on stages 6, 7 and 8 in his Darrian - a great performance in a very tidy car. The only other 'incident' of the event came in stage 6 when Andy Davison - also from Middlesborough - rolled his Samba into retirement.

Going into the final stage, and with light fading, McQueen had a lead of 22 seconds over John Rintoul who in turn was under pressure from Robin Hamilton - he had closed to within 3 seconds of taking second place. Mcqueen was fastest yet again, finishing the stage with a donut to celebrate his win. Rintoul was 9 seconds slower than the Impreza, finishing in seconds place and Hamilton came in 2 seconds slower again. Fourth place on the stage and third overall. A better morning by Keith Davison might have seen him finish higher than fourth overall - he was just two seconds behind Robin Hamilton at the end of the day, winning class 3 in the process.

The under-1400cc class was won by Gerry McCafferty and Davie Hatrick in their super-clean Corsa. They were11 seconds faster than Craig Curry on the opening stage, and that was the gap at the end of the day. But that masked ups and downs - although the Corsa was faster in the morning stages, Curry's Astra was quicker on all the afternoon stage, bar stag 5 which was a tie.

Class two was taken by Ian Grubb and Laura Shanks' Peugeot 106 GTi. Their winning margin was an impressive 43 seconds over Ian Macdonald / Willian McKenzie's Citroen Saxo. Tom & Sue Hynd were third in class despite an almighty inclident on the first stage of the day that removed the front of their car and put a huge dent along the co-driver's side of the car. Even at the end, though, the crew were chirpy about their day. "A great event", Sue said. Then went home to start saving up for the repairs ...

With the top three finishers overall being excluded from the class results, Kevin Stout won the 'big car' class in his Audi 80 Quattro - one of two that entered the rally. He beat two Subaru Imprezas - including an ex-Richard Burns Group A car.

The Kingdom Stages also resolved the Scottish Tarmack Rally Championship. Mark Wheeler was 5th overall at Crail - enough to give him the Scottish title. Well done Mark. One donut wasn't enough for the Hamilton driver - he managed to squeeze in two between the flying finish and the stop board!