East Boldon rally driver Simon Moore suffered a very disappointing Pirelli Challenge Rally last weekend when a driveshaft broke at the start of the opening stage forcing his Renault Clio out of the event.After a good result on the opening round of the BRC Challenge, fifth place on the Bulldog Challenge Rally and first in the Clio Challenge, Moore and co-driver Emma Morrison had been hoping to score a good haul of points on the second round to put them in a good position in the championship but their hopes were dashed within a few seconds of the rally start.
"The driveshaft broke as soon as I accelerated off the start line of the opening Roughside stage, I couldn't believe it," said Moore.
"We struggled on for over a mile before the diff finally gave up and we lost all drive, the car stopped and that was our rally over. We were aiming to improve on our Bulldog result, we had addressed the issues we had with the brakes on that event by changing the brake fluid and we were confident of getting a top three result."
"This rally just wasn't meant to be for us. It was topped off when a loose stone from Keith Cronin's Subaru smashed the side window while we were parked on the side of the stage so that was great, I just needed my Hamlet cigar!"
"We’ve just got to put the disappointment behind us now and get on with preparing for the next BRC Challenge round. We are hoping that an overdue suspension revamp will arrive to replace the current basic setup in time for that event which should give a big improvement to the handling of the car."
After two events on gravel the BRC Challenge switches to tarmac for the next round with the Jim Clark Challenge Rally taking place on closed public roads around Duns in Scotland.
