February 10th, 2013
North by North West ?
Sorry folks – the title’s partly me just indulging myself in mentioning the title of one of my favourite films by my favourite film director, Alfred Hitchcock. The real action in the North West this weekend wasn’t in America but based around Blackpool, where the North West Stages ran on Friday night and all day Saturday.
After a lay-off since Charterhall 2012, Duncan Wardrop and Ian Crosbie took the DW Construction Impreza to what must be the guys’ favourite rally and, seeded at 29 from a healthy entry list, headed off into the Friday night stages, lamp pod and all, hoping for a result. Ian tells me they finished 16th overall having been in the top ten at one point. They were held up in stage 22/23 Weirton by slower cars, dropping them from 10th to 16th but better news was that they were 4th fastest on a new stage, SS8 the Docks at Fleetwood, where they were just one second slower than Paul Bird and Kevin Proctor, (both of whom were in WRC cars) and on the same time as Tony Bardy. All three of these names, if you dont recognise them, are top tarmac rallyists.
Looks like the secret to sucess is an 11 month break after each event Duncan!. Well done the SOSCC crew!.