Rob Watson will aim to maintain winning ways on this weekends’ Black Horse Finance Stages Rally, the penultimate round of the AV Craine Manx Rally Championship.
The Greeba driver hasn’t been beaten on a closed-roads club event in over two and a half years, dating back to the February 2004 CCS Rally.
Driving the familiar Vauxhall Nova kit car, Rob and co-driver Rob Fagg will lead a field of 40 crews into action tonight (Friday) for the final closed roads event of the year. And while they will be clear favourites, picking out who may be the nearest challengers on the Manx Auto Sport event is no easy task.
Almost any of the top dozen or so crews could feature, with only Russell Millward and Shaun Fox absent of our leading drivers. Steve Quine, who led the Rally Isle of Man Trophy Rally until the very final stage on his last appearance, sets of at number 2 with Norman Quayle in a Vauxhall Astra that has had the brakes completely overhauled.
George Collister and Janet Craine are looking to take championship points but should nonetheless be somewhere near the pace after their recent Duke Stages win in the Evo 3. Behind them Nigel Cannell, who has Andrew Holmes alongside in the Vauxhall Corsa kit car, is a past winner of the event and usually manages to keep the pressure on Watson.
Lee Batty goes at 5 and is still feeling his way with the no-expense spared MkII Escort, but the man to watch could well be Paul Curphey in the Evo 8, particularly if it’s wet after last weekends’ outstanding performance in the UK (see Rally Torque).
The opening nights action begins from the Grandstand at 7.10pm, and the opening test is a run from Whitebridge, across the Groudle road and onto Baldromma. The second stage heads from Baldrine to the Dog Kennels triangle and then on to Creg-ny-Baa, while the loop is completed with a run from Cronk-ny-mona over Abbeylands and Ballaoates, onto St Lukes and finishing at West Baldwin. The loop is tackled three times with service at the Grandstand in between.
The event base moves to St Johns tomorrow for a 9am re-start for four separate stages tackled twice each. The opening stage of the day takes in Little London, Sartfield hairpin, Brandywell Cottage and Druidale and the following test takes in Staarvey, the Switchback and Ballagyr.
The final four stages of the event alternate between the Garey road above Glen Maye, and onto the Mines and rapid Shoulder Road descent to South Barrule, and Druidale tackled from the Ballaugh end up. The finish is expected at 2.30pm in St Johns.