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Rally Rattlings
The event went considerably better than my fears during the week preceding. I had committed us to a fairly expensive, but good quality, breakfast at the Jarvis Great Danes Hotel near Leeds Castle, which gave me financial concerns as the entry stood at only 17 by the Wednesday before the closing date and at our committee meeting that night I expressed my concerns. However, by the close of entries on the Monday evening before the event we had 26 competitors, 21 for the Nat B section and 5 for the Clubmans. So all was set and the real hard work of preparation set in. I was greatly helped by Sue Speller, Chris Scudder and Andy and Viv Elcomb - where would we all be without the latter trio? Mark Dawson also had some solid work to do on the Saturday when he went to the container and discovered that we were short of stakes for the Control and Code Boards, which was odd as we had fewer boards needed this year than last. Nonetheless, stalwart that he is, he overcame this difficulty and also managed to get all of the furniture into the Puma - no mean feat as, after the event, we filled my estate and some of Chris Scudder's car with them all. The navigation was even simpler than last year which meant that everyone got round most of the route with only three retirements, Car 4 missed a Code Board in the first half and decided to go home and two others succumbed to mechanical problems. As you will see below, I'll have little to talk about next month so I'll leave the full report 'til then. May I just say now that you all responded well to the call for marshals and we manned 48 TCs and 5 PCs - well done. BAD NEWS With the current crisis with Foot and Mouth Disease all rallies, trials, PCTs Autotests etc. other than single venue stage rallies, and all events using MOD land have been cancelled. We can understand this action and congratulate the MSA on it's speedy response to the situation. There has inevitably been much discussion on the theory and practice of the disease and it's spread but our actions go beyond the mere practical and address the PR aspect of the problem - who do we depend on highly as a sport? Farmers! So lets be seen to be as responsible as possible. We don't know yet how long the crisis will last, in 1967 it lasted for 5 months, but I can't see us getting back to normal until the summer. This means that the 2001 calendar will be greatly disrupted and I'll keep you as up to date as possible through this column and our website. To cheer us up a little at this time, I'm off to the ASEMC and ACSMC awards presentation immediately after sending this to Dawn and I'd like to congratulate Graham Child, Kevin Ablitt, Colin Billings and Andy Elcomb on their success in 2000 - keep it up chaps - when we get back to play. Get the car fixed while you can - the latter half of the year's going to be busy! Chin |
