As many of you already know GMC-MOTORSPORT'S year has been a quiet one with entering only hand picked events.

This was due to a number of reasons, with the main one being our purchase of the new 16-valve Bowyer engine. There have been a number of other tweaks along the way but the financial issues for the further development of the car hindered us from entering a full STRC season.

The final event of the year for all in the championship was the Kingdom Stages at Crail for which we have entered every year for the last 8 years or so. We decided to give the car it’s final test of the year before carrying out further development work on the car over the winter months.

The event consisted of 8 special stages on 100% tarmac, 4 in a clockwise direction and 4 anticlockwise. Our plan was for a full attack over the opening few stages and try and build up a good lead to enable us to enjoy the rest of the event and concentrate on easing our way up the overall leaderboard.

With the weather damp and the track wet with varying degrees of grip, concentration was to be at a peak for us both. After a very fast and clean 1^st loop of stage 1 we were entering a junction after a long straight and lost the rear end of the car under very heavy braking. Unfortunately, this directed us head-on into a straw bale at approximately 50mph! After striking the bale, we were fortunately pointing in the right direction, so we slotted first gear and drove on to the flying finish with a leaking radiator, bumper, bonnet and various other parts loose on the car.

After a 30 minute service and all the necessary repairs carried out we headed out for stage 2, again very slippy under braking but managing to avoid the dreaded strawbales.........nearly ! As we entered a very fast right hand bend about 2 miles into the stage, the car drifted wide, and glanced off another straw bale, which deflected the car off the stage into the undergrowth, however, despite being stuck for a few seconds we managed to retrieve the situation and carried to to finish the stage.

At this point in the rally, bearing in mind it was only 10.30 am we were despondent about our performance, and felt that it wasn't to be our day. We decided to inspect the stage times to assess the time lost due to our scrappy first two stages, and we were were amazed, that despite our spin and altercation with a straw bale we were 7^th fastest car overall out of 93 through stage 1 !! And we believed we were too slow !! No wonder we crashed if that was our level of pace. With this acting as a confidence booster, we pulled ourselves together and tried to concentrate on the job in hand. At this point, we were sitting 2^nd in class with a deficit of over 30 seconds, but decided we should go for it.

Stages 3,4 and 5 were the best of the day with no real traffic or incidents to report, our times were looking a much healthier and beginning to claw back time on the car 1^st in class.

Stage 6 we opted to change our tyres to brand new Michelin dry weather tyres courtesy of our sponsor A1 Tyres from East Kilbride and what a difference they made.We pulled back even more time on the car ahead of us and went into the 7^th stage with a 16 second lead. With 2 stages to go we knew if we kept up the pace we could be in with a close battle on the 8^th and final stage.

Stage 7 saw another great clean run with no traffic to hinder our comeback from what was a terrible start to the day, the only issue we did have was the titanium sump guard brackets shearing and the sump guard dropped at the front scooping up all manner of debris and sending the sparks flying in the dusky Fife skyline, I am told it was a sight and a half!

Repairing the sump guard at service was a straightforward issue and at this point during service the clerk of the course informed us the rally would finish at this time due to the weather conditions and failing light. Happy with that, we found out the stage times for stage 7 to find we had indeed clawed back even more time and won the class by over 30 seconds.

Overall a very disappointing start to the day with a fantastic ending, yet another class victory for Scotland’s unbeatable 1400 team.

The car has already been stripped of all damaged panels and is currently being repaired at the coachworks, afterwhich, we will commence the long awaited upgrading of the steering, suspension, transmission, and a few tweaks to the cars aerodynamic package. Our 'BIG' plans for the 2005 season should be announced in the coming weeks