2000 Moonshine Rally Report
1 December 2000
Friday 1st December saw Queen's University Motor Club run the last navigation rally of the year. As is the tradition on this event, the Clerk of the Course comes from their student members who has not run a rally before. All competitors were full of praise for James Woods' smoothly run event, including a late change of route due to flooding on Thursday night.
21 cars started out from Killinchy, 11 of those being in Class 4 (beginners). With the route instructions kept purposefully simpler than the norm, 5 crews ended the first half of the rally with no penalties at all: Leslie Young/Lewis Boyd and Trevor and Ricky Reid were tied for Class 2; Neil Kilpatrick/Eric McCombe and David Sommerville/Kyle Wethers were equal in Class 3; and David Gibson/William Hamilton were impressive with a first half clean run to lead Class 4.
This all changed with one particular crossroads junction which evidently gave the navigators too many routes to choose from! A total of 8 crews made expensive errors at the same point. Class 2 was decided here with Young/Boyd arriving from the wrong direction, handing the class win to the father and son crew Trevor and Ricky Reid. Sommerville/Wethers left the junction down the incorrect road. Although they realised their mistake quickly and retraced their steps back to the junction in question, the damage had been done, and the class win went to Kilpatrick/McCombe. The other hitherto clean crew of Gibson/Hamilton also went wrong here, but with a combination of their main competitors copying their mistake, and a good run for the rest of the rally, they held on to their lead, to take the Class 4 victory from John Henderson/Andy Gilmore in 2nd and Brian Gray/Alan Shilliday in 3rd.
Every crew was eligible for the overall win, unlike NI Championship navigation rallies, and due to both Class 2 crews picking up a maximum 30 minute penalty at the penultimate control, the battle was between the leading Class 3 and Class 4 crews. Only 2 crews from the entire field avoided maximums all night (Robert Graham/James Strange from Class 4 and Kilpatrick/McCombe). This was the deciding factor with Kilpatrick/McCombe only picking up an extremely creditable 3 penalties all night, winning overall on Neil's first ever event. 2nd was Sommerville/Wethers, whose only penalty was that single, expensive, maximum 30. Class 4 winners Gibson/Hamilton were 3rd overall, with Henderson/Gilmore 4th and Alan Magowan/Allen Russell 5th.
Results:
Kilpatrick/McCombe (Escort) 3 mins
Sommerville/Wethers (Peugeot 205) 30 mins
Gibson/Hamilton (Mk I Escort) 34 mins
Henderson/Gilmore (Talbot Sunbeam) 37 mins
Alan Magowan/Allen Russell (Porsche 911) 37 mins
Trevor Reid/Ricky Reid (Mk II Escort) 38 mins
Patrick McCollum
Posted by PMcCollum on 4/12/2008; Last updated by PMcCollum on 4/12/2008