It was a pleasure to be up on the Otterburn ranges again and it was good news that the Cheviot was running again, after being cancelled in 2015. With the title sewn up Damian Cole & Paul Morris wheeled out the Escort MkII for a change and were not helped by the damp conditions early on. David Tinn & Giles Dykes (Satria Neo) made the most of 4WD and ran away to a 50 second lead by the end of the 2nd loop of stages. With the stages drying from there on in they extended their lead to over a minute before easing back on the final two loops to take victory by 70 seconds.
Richard Clews & Ian Windress (Impreza) went well in the mixed conditions and were in a fierce battle with Michael Glendinning & Charley Sayer-Payne (Impreza), for 2nd place. Glendinning was other worldly at times as our view of him on crow stone showed; flat out, no lift over the jump with all 4 wheels off the stage and on the grass, but knowing the line he kept his foot in as the stage bent back to the line of his car, amazing to watch. He came unstuck on stage 8 though with a broken manifold so Clews was now 2nd and with the stages drying up he was under pressure from Chris Ford & Michael Gilbey as they used the extra power from their Impreza WRC.
Cole was making his mark though and in the dry he could get the power down and a string of fastest times over the 2nd half of the event saw him catch and move ahead of Ford. In the end Clews had done enough early on and held on to 2nd place by just 4 seconds from a hard charging Cole with Ford just 9 seconds back in 4th place overall.
90right UK Rallying 