Results

Event: 24-Mar-2013

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

Given the cold and windy conditions prevailing at the Motor Club’s first Autotest of the 2013 season it would not have been surprising to have had insufficient entries to run the event. Not so. There were in fact ten entries with a very wide range of cars represented.

Take for instance the Mercedes E320 double entered by the Moar Brothers Andrew and Aaron. This great silver leviathan was hurled at the scenery in great style by the brothers, turning in respectable times and not striking any course markers despite its bulk. However, the enthusiastic driving caused the car some distress and the fact that it was the daily driver of Aaron necessitated its withdrawal to the pits to cool down and post the ninth and tenth slots in retirement.

Eighth place was taken by first time competitor Robbie Spence in a tidy Ford Focus. This last place did not reflect what was a spirited drive without any wrong route penalties and only 20 points for swiping a couple of course markers.

Alan Tait had double entered a Vauxhall Corsa and a Citroen Saxo with son Steven but, unusually for Alan, he made route mistakes for both of his turns and despite his usual rapid progress was left with seventh and sixth places.

As well as the Merc’ the Moar brothers had entered an unusual Subaru Justy and Aaron drove the twitchy looking car to a respectable fifth place despite demolishing three marker posts.

Steven Tait, this time at the wheel of the shared Corsa, made a route error straight out of the box but none the less turned the wick up enough to recover to fourth place.

Third place and in the trophies was Andrew Moar at the helm of the Justy which he three-wheeled to the line, clouting two course markers on the way.

This then left two drivers to contest the top two positions. Trevor Sutherland, driving his Ford Ka and Steven Tait this time at the helm of his shared Citroen Saxo have been rivals for top honours before and both pulled out all the stops.

Trevor won test one and three and Steven took two and four and the problem for the timekeeper was how to award the days win when both drivers scored the same number of points and were equal on test wins. It was agreed that the decider would fall to whoever had the lowest penalty score but this was doomed to failure when reference to the score sheets showed that neither competitor had accrued any penalties! The decision was subsequently made to award a tie for a shared win as just reward for some excellent driving.

With the next event two weeks away on April 7TH things look promising for any action packed season.

JMS