The NessRallySport Team of Don Murray and Andy Philip finished off their 2008 season with their 6th finish from 7 starts, when they completed the Kingdom Stages Rally at Crail Airfield last Saturday, in the Tim Finch Rallyesport prepared NessRallySport Subaru Impreza.This was their first full event on tarmac and a finish in 38th place was their reward for a day spent getting to grips with the differences in surface and layout. Don said;-

“We were really looking forward to this event, as we came here last year and the previous car let us down after only 2 stages. We expected it to be a very different proposition from gravel, but the wet and slippery surfaces around the airfield meant that the car moved around a lot more than we expected!”The car is currently set up for forest rallying, but the team is contemplating doing more tarmac events next year, so this was just a taster to see if they liked the experience.

“We didn’t change too much on the car for this event. We basically just borrowed some second hand tarmac tyres and decided to give it a go. It was a very enjoyable event and we do now plan to do 3 or 4 tarmac events next year, so it was a valuable day to learn the ropes”.A finish inside the top 30 looked on until a near coming together with another competitor at a chicane saw them take avoiding action, resulting in a backwards spin into a tyre barrier. Fortunately no damage was done to the car, however they lost around 45 seconds as they tried to restart the hot engine. Such was the nature of the competition on the day that the time lost cost them about 9 places.

This has been the most intensive season the team has had so far, and plans for 2009 are well underway, with a proposed program of 8 events. The team would like to close off the year by expressing their thanks and appreciation to the sponsors, Ness Properties and Macritchie Highland Distribution for their financial support of our efforts throughout the season, and to Tim Finch Rallyesport of Carlisle for their car preparation, and to the Stornoway Gazette for reporting our exploits.

See you in 2009!