Anyone going to spectate on next weekends event?

The official website details 6 Special Stages totalling 43.18miles, is this a joke?

2 of these are 0.71mile 'spectator' stages at Heathhall airfield, 2 are designated as non-spectator stages which leaves 2 stages in Ae forest!

If this is it I won't bother wasting petrol!

No wonder rallying is in the doldrums, there is very little consideration given to spectators apart from charging you to park in a field (for charity of course).

 

Yep, I will be there... first outing with the new camera...

 

Well I went, and sorry, bugger the officials, We went to the non-spectator stages, Greskine being one of them.

Here are 11 pictures from the day, the other 314 going on my website soon.

Enjoy!

 

As organisers we don't make stages "non-spectator" to inconvenience people, we do it because there are good reasons for not having spectators there. As well as the issue of the lack of spectator parking we also have a PR issue with access to these stages. We rely on a private landowner's agreement to be able to use Kinharvie - if he gets hacked off then we (and other events) could lose access to the forest. Whilst having a few speccies there doesn't cause us a problem, if large numbers choose to ignore our requests we will end up with real difficulties. It's hard enough to get appropriate mileage as it is without that happening. I hope you can see why we make these decisions.

I would just like to say a "thank you" to everyone who was out, whether they were spectating, competing or (more importantly) marshalling. From my viewpoint (in the left hand seat of the Inter car) I only saw 2 people standing in daft places in 45 miles which was a nice surprise!

George Malloch
Chief Safety Officer
Scottish Rally

 

2007 Scottish International Rally - 43 miles and 6 stages.

A disgrace and doesn't deserve the name of Scottish International Rally.

I'm old enough to remember being taken to the proper Scottish Rallies in the late 70's and 80's that went all over Scotland and attracted the very best of International drivers.

It must have taken the best part of a morning to plan this rally, not worth going to.

Now the Jim Clark is the best rally in Scotland by far, and well worth going to.

Dave

 

Dave,

This was my first Rally I had ever been to. The weather didn't help at all!

Not being familiar with rules and regs, I thought that if a stage was "a Non Spectator" stage then Marshals should refuse you entry - But we were let right through! Very suprised!

I'm not saying it was bad, as it was my first Rally, and an eye-opener. Wasn't as good as i thought it was going to be though!

 

Please remember that most of, if not all the marshalls do this for free.

Thanks

 

Adam, Any pics of car 42, white Escort Cossy? I was navigating in it.

 

I marshalled on the Scottish in the late 70's. Quite different from today

 

Totally agree Dave. I remember when I used to follow the "SCOTTISH" for 5 days + from Inverness-shire to the borders and everywhere inbetween. stopped going when it became the "Dumfries" Rally.

Sadly the cost of rallying has priced many teams and individuals out of competing hence the far shorter event

sad but true!

Gus

 

Hi mark,

I do indeed, sorry for the late reply.

I will get then up soon........

 

Cheers!

 

Sorry about that, been unexxpectedly busy these past few days.

Mark, if you want these pictures in full resolution and unedited, fire me a quick PM with an E-Mail address and i'll send them off to you.

 

Cool pics! Was not impressed with that first stage in Greskine, it was really rough and slippy cos it hadn't been used since 2000!

 

Yeah, we walked the whole stage and eventually picked our vantage point. It was a very poor surface, even when the first couple of cars went through, it just left cuts in the gravel. We seen cars crawl through it, so we eventually moved to the last corner.