There was a long fast section at the end of the next stage. I was on the rev limiter for a long time, and that rattled the crank pulley loose which subsequently threw the alternator and power steering belt off, like had happened on the Trackrod last year. Fortunately, though, it didn’t cost us any time because of when it happened. We managed to repair it at service at the end of the stage, but we couldn’t fix the power steering so had to complete the second run through Abbey St Bathans still without it and knew we would have to push really hard to not lose any time.
Halfway through there was a nasty rock in the middle of the road, but I just avoided it. We had some problems again with the bottom pulley coming off, but we repaired it at the end of the stage while waiting for George to appear. James Wozencroft came through first, and he obviously had a puncture at the rear because his bodywork was damaged. George came through behind him, dragging his car along with a broken rear wheel. They had both hit the same rock I had managed to avoid – we were really lucky to have got away with it.
That left us leading the class by three-and-a-half minutes at the end of the day. We were really chuffed with that, but equally we knew we had a long way to go and another full day to get through on the Sunday. We returned to service really happy with our performance, but I knew it could all be thrown away if we had a bad final day.
When we set out on the Sunday the conditions were really treacherous, and the roads on the
Jim Clark are notoriously slippery as it is. The times weren’t competitive, but that wasn’t what the day was about for us. We had done all that hard work already, so I didn’t want to make a silly mistake and throw it all away. It was a bit of a difficult day to get through really, knowing we couldn’t push because it just wasn’t worth taking any risks. It’s not the way I like to go rallying, but we won the class and that’s what mattered.
