MacCrone’s Drive to Success Halted On Jim Clark Rally
Duns, United Kingdom — Rally Team Scotland’s home event in the MSA British Rally Championship saw driver John MacCrone set some blisteringly fast stage times but an early driveshaft problem stranded the crew on the Jim Clark Rally this weekend.
MacCrone and co-driver Stuart Loudon’s frustrating problem on just the second stage of the event left them at the back of the field before setting the timesheets alight on their way back to claim third in the Fiesta Sport Trophy.
The Jim Clark Rally was the first of three consecutive all-Tarmac events in the British Championship taking place in Scotland, Isle of Man and Northern Ireland. The event took in some great closed public road stages around Duns in the Scottish Borders – the homeland of the rally’s namesake. Clark was one of the greatest ever Formula 1 drivers and hailed from Duns and the rally was celebrating its ruby 40th anniversary this year.
The Jim Clark Rally is a unique challenge for drivers. It’s the only rally on public roads in mainland Britain and it offered 140 miles of high-speed, flowing stages around the picturesque Borders countryside. Stages are smooth and very demanding with high hedges making drivers even more reliant on accurate pacenotes.
Twenty-year-old MacCrone’s Tarmac experience is limited mainly to competing on his home rally on the Isle of Mull but he blitzed the field on the very first short stage around Duns town centre on Friday evening, finishing 10th overall and topping the timesheets for the Fiesta Sport Trophy crews.
But his Palletforce-backed Ford Fiesta R2 broke a driveshaft on the next test and he was unable to make it through to the finish and was forced to retire.
Rally Team Scotland’s mechanics set to work and had replaced the offending part overnight allowing MacCrone and Loudon to re-start the event the next morning under SupeRally rules – albeit back in last position. These regulations penalise crews by 10 minutes for every stage missed on the first day but allow them to re-enter and gain experience of the roads and the rally on the second day.
After settling into Saturday’s first stage, the 11.2 mile Wedderburn, MacCrone started to prove just why he was listed by Motorsport News as the UK’s top young motorsport driver at the start of this year.
He powered the Tunnocks Fiesta through stages 9 and 10 claiming 11th overall on both and was second in the R2 category through the Swinton stage – with its unnerving high speeds jumps testing drivers’ commitment to the limit. By the time it returned to Service at Kelso Racecourse, the Rally Team Scotland car had already moved up five places in the leaderboard.
MacCrone and Loudon had been fastest Fiesta all morning and continued that feat for the rest of the event. Their performance was relentless throughout the rest of the day as they continued to impress, even when road conditions turned damp and slippery on the last few stages, and were rewarded with the final podium position in the Fiesta Trophy for their efforts.
Although not the best of final results for MacCrone and the team, the event did prove the youngster’s speed on Tarmac and provided valuable experience and an exciting sense of optimism for the next championship round at Rally Isle of Man. The British Championship crews head across the Irish Sea to take part in one of the series’ classic, and most-demanding, events from 9-10 July.
John MacCrone said, “This rally was always going to be tough and as our first event on Tarmac this year I really wanted to come away with experience. So you can imagine how frustrating it was on Friday night when the driveshaft broke. But I’m at the stage in my career where experience is crucial and that’s why it was so important to get back out there again the next day. One of the most positive things to come from the rally was the quality of my pacenotes. I’ve spent a lot of time working on them with Stuart and it’s really starting to pay off. The car feels great on Tarmac and that’s really good for the next two rallies.”
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Image Copyrights: Jakob Ebrey
Photo: MacCrone’s Drive to Success Halted On Jim Clark Rally
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