The Rally2Raise team of Aberdeen’s Rachel Clark and Brampton’s
Caroline Lodge enjoyed another successful event last weekend when they finished
second in class on the GWF Energy Merrick Stages rally.
Heavy rain the day before the rally made the 9 miles of the
opening Craignell stage extremely slippery with several of the top drivers
having spins. There were no problems for Rachel in her E.Watson and Son,
Pirelli, AW Motorsport and McPherson Document Solutions-supported Nissan Micra
1.3 though and she completed the stage fourth in class.
The Dallash stage was next and Rachel maintained her
position with another good performance. Following a service halt the crews
headed for a pair of stages in Glentrool forest including one that was 13
miles long. With a lot of long straights these stages didn’t suit the Micra
which, with around 60bhp, was the lowest powered car in the event. However,
Rachel extracted every bit of performance from the car to move up to second in
class.
One more stage stood between Rachel and a great result but
at 14 miles stage 5 was the longest of the event and it had already claimed
several of the cars that were running ahead of the Micra. The crew and car
emerged unscathed though and Rachel and Caroline made it to the event finish in
Wigtown.
“The stages were absolutely awesome,” said Rachel. “The
tracks were very slippery and the weather went from sun to torrential rain and
back so conditions were extremely challenging. The little Micra struggled on
the long straights, we definitely needed a lot more power there.”
“I tried as much as possible to keep the momentum up – when
you slow down it takes a long time to build up speed again in a 1.3. This led
to some interesting moments though including bouncing through a ditch at a hairpin
in front of a group of spectators. After our gear linkage issues on the last
event it was great to have a troublefree rally this time.”
“Thanks to the Marshall family for putting on a brilliant
event, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks also to E.Watson and Son, Pirelli, AW
Motorsport and McPherson Document Solution for their support and to Clark
Motorsport for trailering the car and servicing.”
For more information please visit www.rally2raise.co.uk or
www.facebook.com/rally2raise.