 Drystone Rally 1998 |  Taunton Marksman Rally '98 |
Drystone Rally 1998 | Taunton Marksman Rally '98 |
Guildford MC's first running of the Pheasant Plucker passed off smoothly. The navigation and white roads wearn't as smooth though. Reynolds/Hayward triumphed whilst others found more unusual ways of aquiring penalties, many more experienced navigators choosing to do silly things.
Crossborder CoC and ACoC Chris Martin/Andy Coshan came in third, best of the Semi-Experts and the Novices' awards were taken by Stella Morris/Robert Morris.
Starting deep in Hampshire the route lost no time in diving into the twistier lanes. Straightforward navigation was the order of the day, although this was not always to be the case... Despite this though, PRAR chose to ignore the instructions to take the long way round the trees at TC 5. 40 minutes for missing the PCs put them pretty close to last! They did manage quite a comeback to eventually end up 5th, but really they should have been the winners.
By the end of the first timecard things were shaping up nicely: Matthew Fowle/John Upham posted the only clean sheet, with Mike Biss/Sue Speller (standing in for Cath Woodman who was on the Isle of Man) and Chris Pratt/Nick Ardern chasing on one minute. As ever though the Novices and Semi-Eperts were still struggling, perhaps their simplified hand outs were not as simple as they appeared? Once crews encountered "Bob's Compass" the cat was well and truly amongst the pigeons.
By petrol at the Meon Hut things appeared to have settled down. Pratt/Ardern were back in the lead with a very respectable 3 minutes, chasing closely came Fowle/Upham, the Mark I Escort Matthew had borrowed obviously enjoying getting back into motorsport after a twelve year break, with 11. Two minutes further back were Biss/Speller.
The sections straight out from petrol didn't have much to trouble the experts, but there was to be a few twists at the end. A string of short sections in the complicated mass of lanes at Barnet Side proved to be the undoing of many.
First fallers were Pratt/Ardern. Misreading a handout saw them arrive at a control but without collecting any PCs. This was costly, but more costly was the fail they received for turning round in the control to go back for the PCs. Biss/Speller fell foul of the same handout, a straight forward herringbone with the start at a previous control. They chose to take the 80 minutes for missed PCs, figuring that a fail would always be far more costly than just minutes.
The previous section had already proved to be the downfall of Fowle/Upham. Two missed PCs saw them take a nose dive down the leader board. Accurate navigation came through for Reynolds/Hayward in the end. Despite accumulating nearly an hour in penalties they missed no codeboards as such were rightly declared the winners.
Next year the Pheasant Plucker will be National B status, but whether Hampshire can take two events (the Cross Border being the second) so close together remains to be seen. Maybe Basingstoke MC will revive the spring Tour of Hampshire to allow for sufficent resting of the areas? Time will tell.
Pos Driver/Navigator Car f m 1 Alex Reynolds/Glyn Hayward Golf 55 2 Matthew Fowle/John Upham Escort 58 3 Chris Martin/Andy Coshan Astra 68 4 Martin Smith/Gemma Morris Corolla 75 5 Doug Kingsley/PRAR Nova 79 6 Mike Biss/Sue Speller Nova 99 7 Nick Hedges/Glyn Williams Audi 80 127 8 Chris Pratt/Nick Arden 205 1 16 9 Ken Pape/John Stringer 205 1 88 10 Stella Morris/Robert Morris XR3i 2 135 11 Bob Bridges/Ian Miles Fiesta 6 129 12 Ian Harrison/Bob Muttram XR3i 6 233 13 Chris Carpenter/Ralph Henley 7 321 14 Tim Lloyd/David Turner Sierra 8 346 15 Mike Terry/John Stafford Mini Cooper 34 1210 DNF Jonathan Marlow/Paul Marlow Escort
