DARKNESS SPELLS DISASTER

The gloom and darkness of Kielder Forest, officially the most unlit place in Britain, certainly proved a stern test for the cars and crews taking part in the Pirelli International Rally and there were many tales of woe as the cars exited the forest near Stonehaugh for the run back to Carlisle. One man with no worries however was Mark Higgins who completed a remarkable recovery, taking his Eddie Stobart Ford Focus back to the top of the leaderboard, he was a full half minute quicker than his brother David over the 11.95 kilometres of Chirdonhead to leapfrog Austin McHale and go into a narrow 4.7 second overnight lead.

Many other drivers weren’t so lucky, Paul Bird stalled his Ford Focus at a haipin, Tapio Laukkanen made an error and put his Subaru briefly in a ditch., Gareth McHale survived a big moment, putting his Toyota Corolla sideways over a blind brow, Lorna Smith’s Subaru looked decidedly second hand, she complained the rear of the car was all over the place and the diff sounded terminally rough.

Jon Ingram put his Ford focus off and lost a minute, Richard Gower confessed to, “Not being brave enough” and Tony Davies retired his Subaru, he sustained a puncture after 4 miles, when he stopped to change the wheel, the wheelbrace broke and he was forced to drive out of the stage on three wheels!!

Aaron McHale lost the sumpguard off his Mitsubishi, loud bangs coming from under the car, Barry Clark put his Subaru off in Rushy Knowe stage, then had a puncture as well, John Lloyd suffered a puncture on two successive stage, he lost a lot of time creeping out of the forest to preserve his tyres!

Brian O’Mahoney lost time when his Ford Puma stalled and refused to restart and Manxman Andrew Leece lost a whopping four minutes changing a puncture RusKnowe, Kielder was certainly living up to it’s “Killer” reputation.

Leaderboard at the end of day one :-

M.Higgins/B.Thomas (Ford Focus 44.13.5, A.McHale/B.Murphy Ford Focus 44.18.2, D.Higgins/ D.Barritt Mitsubishi 44.41.2, P.Bird/ I.Windress Ford Focus 44.59.2, G.McHale/ P.Nagle Toyota Corolla 45.03.4, S.Ling/ I.Allsop Hyundai Accent 45.23.0, T.Laukkanen Subaru Impreza 45.28.3, S.Perez/ N.Dashfield Ford Focus 45.31.0, J.Milner/ N.Beech Toyota Corolla 45.34.7, R.Gower/ A.Davies Hyundai Accent 46.16.2.