Results

Event: 2-Oct-2011

Note: BPLD = Best Performance by a Lady Driver, BPYD = Best Performance by a Young Driver, Max = Maximum penalty for incomplete test(s), DNF = Did Not Finish

Report

The weather may have been cool but the action was hot as Motor Club competitors met for the last Autotest of the 2011 season at Caldale last Sunday.

The competitors were, as usual, supplied with two maps of the test courses each of which had to be driven as quickly as possible without making any errors or striking any of the marker posts. On this occasion members had requested that the tests be designed with more and complicated elements so the organisers duly obliged making the test route for the third and fourth runs twice as complicated as usual.

Recent new members Ryan Doull and Euan Barnett entered with a tidy looking Rover 200 and both quickly improved on their times. Unfortunately however both fell foul of the penalties for errors and also struck course markers. The resulting hundred penalties for Euan and seventy penalties for Ryan resulted in their final positions at twelfth and eleventh respectively.

John Firth, borrowing the Renault Clio belonging to Aaron Moar, once more struggled with the car but was unable to make better than tenth place with penalties for striking a course marker. Ahead of John was Sam Macleod in his familiar Ford Ka. Mechanical gremlins on the second test scuppered Sam’s chances of a podium finish by adding significant time penalties to his tally.

Gary Donahoe, again using Aaron Moar’s Clio, seemed able to cope better with the cars handling and lack of handbrake and despite hitting a marker post brought it home in eighth.

Father and son duo Alan and Steven Tait shared the drive of their red Vauxhall Corsa. Both drivers drove well but seemed unable to extract the full potential from the wee beast and the final totals gave the edge to Alan by nineteen points for sixth place leaving Steven with seventh.

Aaron Moar set the pace early on with a spirited drive in the Citroen AX despite the car getting lighter with every passing moment as it shed substantial parts of its exhaust system. Aaron was fastest on test one but the things then went downhill as the cars performance deteriorated leaving him in fifth place. It was however some consolation to Aaron to discover that he had just become the 2011 club Championship runner up.

Alan and Steven Tait were double entered in their old campaigner Mitsubishi Colt following some urgent TLC. Both drivers again seemed well matched as they slid the car around in fine style until Steven made a crucial error picking up ten penalties for striking a post. These points were just enough to promote Alan to third place ahead of Steven in fourth.

Andrew Moar had driven up from south just to compete in the days event and was determined to do well and especially to beat his brother. His first run results did not bode well for Andrew as he immediately picked up marker post penalties but he got his head down and over the next three tests hauled himself into a well deserved second place by just two points.

Long tme club competitor Trevor Sutherland was once again in fine form at the wheel of his Ford Ka. His trophies for motor Club events stretch back further than he would care to remember and it was already an established fact, going into the days event, that he had amassed enough championship points to win the club Championship for 2011. This did not deter him from giving a near faultless show of car control to win the days event by twenty three points from Andrew.

Awards Presentations will now take place for the many trophy winners throughout the year and it is to be hoped that competitors and cars will be even more in evidence with the start of the 2012 season.

JMS