After the nightmare of the Pirelli Matt Cotton was justifiably a little apprehensive when we met up at scrutineering on Friday. The car was finished in the morning and was still being adorned with stickers as we went into scrutineering. No problems arose and it was then just a case of waiting until 7 o'clock for the shakedown stage to start.
Martin Laverty's car had been checked over but he had decided to opt out of shakedown & headed for the accommodation & an early night.
Matt & Anthony headed off to the stage with a mix of slicks & inters with the intention of doing a couple of runs over the stage & then coming back to service to go onto slicks all round.
The first we knew of a problem was a phone call from Matt saying that on the second run through the stage they had a very heavy landing after a yump and the car had cut out & wouldn't restart. Luckily we have an override strategy for the car and after a little work they were able to restart the car and get back to service. We were able to rectify the problem & managed a full set of lights, wipers & indicators but as Matt was happy with the handling we opted not to go back to the stage.
Saturday dawned fine & dry but with a very cold wind. Pretty good conditions for rallying really. 
The first results showed that George Thomas had lost none of his speed from last year and was being chased hard by Martin McCormack with Matt in 3rd place.. Martin Roberts was next up followed by Martin Laverty & Jason Pritchard who was still in considerable pain from his recently broken ankle. Tail end Charlie was Andrew Hockridge who was later to hole his fuel tank on a loose cattle grid and retire to super rally.
Service format for the day was 3 20 minute services with a final one of 45 minutes before parc ferme & the days second service brought a host of problems for many of the teams. Andrew Hockridge was looking for a new fuel tank while both Martin Laverty & Martin Roberts had suffered from their cars cutting out on the stage. Martin L was convinced that it was fuel related & as several other people were were suffering a rumor started that there was a bad batch of fuel. Throughout the day we went through the fuel & electric circuits of the car as did the other service crews one crew would do something which seemed to cure the problem so lemming like the rest of us would change the item only to find the problem returning after a stage or two. Matt & Anthony
The electrical problem suffered on shakedown returned to Matts cars and the random operating of the wipers was distracting but not car stopping. As so many things were affected it seems to be an earth related problem but whether the result of damage from the Pirelli accident or the yump on shakedown we still have not found the problem. At the end of day one George led from Martin McCormack with Matt 3rd. Jason had developed the cutting out problem & had retired in order to rejoin under super rally.
Day 2 started with a bit of a panic as Our C2 wouldn't start in parc ferme. A battery pack soon started the car Panic Over.
First service was 15 minutes followed by one of 20 minutes, one of 30 and a final 10 minutes one to wash the cars off before the ceremonial finish in Kelso. By the second service we had a problem with our battery as it was seriously overheated [boiling], so a quick battery change to get Matt on his way while we carried on trying to solve the cutting out issue on Martins car. Martin McCormack had retired when a front hub failed promoting Matt to second Citroen C2.
The wait for the cars to arrive at final service was excruciating & when Matt phoned through he prefaced the news that they had finished with the fact that they had had a road traffic accident in the service area.
A fellow competitor speeding in the service area had slid into the front of the C2. He then had the nerve to blame Matt who was stationary at the time. Luckily a marshal had seen the incident & reported the Escort driver. Thanks pal, its bad enough when our own drivers damage the cars without having fellow competitors doing it.
After a wash & brush up both cars it was time for the cars to cross the finish line & in Matts case collect his trophy.
***ALL Jim Clark photos are copyrighted to Matt Pennock Photography***
