2010 NORTH WEST STAGES RALLY - ANDY ELLIOT

Wallasey were, as usual, out in force at the biggest event on the regional rally calendar – both competing and volunteering. We’d been allocated our now-customary spot looking after the Lytham Hall stage, run twice on the Saturday afternoon, and the stage was expertly marshalled by Graham Williams as Stage Commander and ably assisted by Alan Smith as Safety Officer.

In spite of gloriously sunny conditions on departing the Wirral on Saturday morning, the further north we travelled the foggier and murkier the weather became. After a scenic tour of Lytham (Stu, I owe you that pint…), John Merriweather, Stu Macmaster and I arrived at the stage start where Stu was to be based for the day while John and I were despatched to man the flying finish with former WMC member Andy Creer. A good catch-up ensued, before it was time to test WMC’s high-tech results-relaying system – i.e. the old field telephones. Strangely enough, whenNige (Harwood) tried ordering 10 portions of curry and chips via Jon (Chamberlain) at the other end of the line, theresponse came back as unprintable in this family publication…..

Down to business, and the official vehicles started coming through the stage before the meaty sound of a rally car engine signalled that we were ready to rock and roll with the competitors. Fortunately, from our vantage point, we could see straight across the field to the start line so had a rough idea of when to expect the cars through the flying finish. After a little bit of initial rustiness in noting down the car numbers, times and relaying these to the finish line, we were soon back into the groove and the team was working very efficiently. An Escort Cosworth with a nearside rear puncture gave us a rather alarming moment in approaching the flying finish as he seemed to be weaving across the stage from side to side – at one point, heading directly for us. Fortunately, this was the closest call we had.

With the first running of the stage completed, there was a short respite before competitors returned for the second running and what was the final stage of the event. With darkness closing in, many crews had opted to fit additional lamp pods which made for quite a sight when they approached us. As always, we were keen to give our support to fellow Club members competing on the event, but were alarmed to hear over the phone of an incident involving Steve Noble’s Renault Clio and a rather old set of iron gates on our stage only a few hundred yards before our post. The resulting “cosmetic alterations”, as can be seen from the series of images which do not make for easy viewing but thankfully neither driver nor co-driver were injured.

The rest of the crews, passing through now in almost complete darkness, successfully negotiated the stage although there were still some stragglers left at the end of the field who we weren’t sure if we’d see again. Despite the impending fog and mist that had started to creep in, and was treacherous driving through, we finished the stage andwere soon packed up and heading for home.