Scottish Hill Rally 2008

I was at the Perthshire Hill Rally this Friday and Saturday. I have marshalled before but this year I wanted more involvment. So I got the job as Management Car for Team Disaster Management. This is made up of Malc and Jim Miller. Malc competes in a 200 tdi 90 with a few tweeks. Jim has a 3.9 V8 rear engined Sug Bug.
My role was fairly simply be there at the end of every stage to ensure they have enough fuel or spare wheels to get to service. The Sug Bug is fairly thirsty so lots of fueling went on. Malc's Tdi was far more frugile.
Malc did have one issue at the end of SS10 having cracked the steering arm bracket and bend his chassis. Badger and Sandy their service crew managed to weld it together before The Legend SS11.
Well done to the whole Team, we got both cars home and Malc and his Co-Driver Adrian got 3rd in class.

Team Disaster Mamangement at the start of the weekend.

The 2 cars in park ferme before the start.

Jim was getting good at this. He managed to wreck 3 wheels over the 2 days. 1 might be repairable. Not this one though.

Service on day 2.

The Legend Stage. SS11

Jim and Scuba at the end of SS11 The Legend after 2 days racing. We had to change the front right wheel before he drove back to Perth. So I never got a picture of Malc at the end of the final stage.

John Cockburn the winner of the event giving it some on SS11

Biking Round Ski Areas.

I had some time off and took 2 days to ride past all the ski areas in Scotland. I didn't set out to do that it just happened. I left Perth and headed up to Aberfeldy to met Ali. We headedout toward Glencoe. Ali joined me for about an hour and then had to head back. I carried on and headed down towards Oban before heading up Glen Orchy.

Then it was up to Rannoch Moore and down into Glencoe. The picture above shows the new section of road by the meeting of the 3 waters. It was an awesome day and a great way to travel through Glenoce.
It was up to Fort William and past my second ski area for the day. Fort Bill was busy with the Mountain Bike world cup on at the weekend there were alot of people around.
From Fort Bill I headed to Spean Bridge and along the side of Loch Laggen where the photo above is taken.

It was time to start to look for somewhere to stay. The bottom of the River Pattack has a great wee spot. It is a Community Woodland Campsite that doesn't cost anything to stay at. The problem of course was the Midges.
In the morning it was up and off to escape the midges. I headed into Newtonmore and fueled up. Then it was up Cairngorm for breakfast. Above shot is taken on the road up to the mountain carpark.
From Cairngorm it was off to Nethy Bridge and then up the road towards The Lecht. A quick stop there and the off towards Braemar and finally passing Glenshee. Above is on the road from Braemar to Glenshee. It was an excellent 2 days and the bike performed really well. I passed it's 600 mile point at Glenshee and so it was in for it's first service the next day. Now the engine is run in I can now see what 7000rpm is all about......

Canyoning

I had a day out last week with Dave from Source Paddlesport We headed up to Acharn on the south side of Loch Tay and went Canyoning on Acharn Falls. It was a great sunny day and it was great to get into the canyon and do some rope work again.

Looking down 35m of Waterfall. I'm down there somewhere.

It is a stunning series of Falls with the biggest being 35m We realised it was this height when we I didn't quite get to the bottom on a doubled 50m rope. Ah the last 10m was easy climb down anyway......

Top and Back Shandon

This weekend I finally got the chance to go to the SORC event Top of the Hill near Shandon on the west coast. Just up from Helensburgh. It has taken 4 years for a SORC team to make it to the highest point on the site and this year I was pleased to be part of the team who got there. Click here to see the plotted route from one of the cars with GPS mapping.

The site is incredably boggy and driving in it is a very different experience. You must drive so softly so as not to break the surface. As soon as the surface tension is broken that's it you sink. It can be as deep as your tyres. Not just up to the axles.

The weather was excellent in fact a bit of sunburn was had. Witht the weather so good the views were awesome down over Helensburgh and Faslane.
At some points all you saw were stuck cars.

But it was worth it to get to the top.

The way back down was not any easier with some interesting trails. There was a bit of damaged sustained. I for one will have to replace my winch cable, fit a new alternator and sort out a fueling problem. The scratches and dent to the body work I'm not too bothered about.

Rear Locker Fitted

Last night saw another trip to Bob's in Edinburgh to fit the Detroit Locker into the Rear Axle. This involved pulling the old axle out and fitting a whole new axle. While I was at it I fitted a set of cranked radius arms from D44. These will stop bush wearing at the rear end. The reason I changed the axle was so that a. I would get Disc Brakes on the rear and b. to get 24 spline half shafts for added strength.


New axle rebuilt and set ready to go back on the truck. As soon as we fixed everything back up and bled the brakes we had to go test it. It was 10.45pm and roof lights were switched on we headed to the forest at the end of Bob's track. I buried it into a ditch and booted it the truck found grip and drove right through. Job done. We went into the slightly steeper ditch and did have to get the winch out but I'm still happy.
The scary news this week is that I have got a place in the Tay Forest Challenge event at the end of August so a little more prep work before then. Rear Winch and maybe a bigger set of tyres. I'm competing with Mike Robertson who I marshalled for last year.