After three days of intense and exhilarating action, even the fireworks which exploded high above the closing ceremony at Stirling Castle couldn’t disguise the sense of anticlimax which followed the ending to the inaugural RallyScotland which fizzled out like a damp squib.
Despite 72 hours of torrential rain, which had turned the Scottish forest stages into sodden and treacherous strips of muddy slime, the final round of the Intercontinental Rally Championship (IRC) was poised for a nailbiting finale.
With spectacular television pictures being beamed live by Eurosport into 115 million homes around the globe, Dungannon’s Kris Meeke entered the final 22-miler at Loch Ard defending a 20.7sec advantage over the Skoda of Darlington’s Guy Wilks.
Unofficial timings a third of the way through the stage, which the Irishman had labelled “the best I have ever driven in the world” after posting the fastest time on the morning run through the test, indicated Wilks was between five or six seconds faster than Meeke’s Peugeot S2000.
But just as the massed TV audience and the thousands of bedraggled spectators lining the route inched closer, relatively, to the edge of their seats and the protective ropes, seven miles into the stage Wilks hurtled round a corner to be confronted by the stationary Proton S2000 of Alister McRae.
The Lanark driver’s bright yellow car, hazard lights piercing through the falling gloom, not only signalled the end of the stage and the TW Steel-backed RallyScotland, but also Wilks’ hopeful charge to what would have been a remarkable victory on his first drive in the Skoda.
As first Wilks, then Meeke, parked up behind McRae, out of sight of the trio Dumfries’s David Bogie had crashed and blocked the stage. The 2009 Scottish champ, who started the stage in fifth but with tyres which he acknowledged beforehand were not suited to the treacherous conditions, spectacularly rolled his Mitsubishi.
Frustratingly for the organisers, the car came to a halt straddling the forest track with a cliff face on one side and a dramatic 100-foot drop on the other. As a result, none of the following cars could squeeze past and the stage was immediately halted meaning the positions at the start of the stage became final.
For IRC champion Meeke though, the victory was an emotional one. The 30-year-old spent almost three years of his early career living with Colin McRae’s family in Lanark while the former world champ funded Meeke’s driving.
“This win, RallyScotland, is for Colin,” Meeke, hugged by his father Sydney, said as tears welled in his eyes. “I wouldn’t have been here if it hadn’t been for all the help and time Colin and the McRae family gave me.
“Of course it’s not the way we wanted to win. It would have been great for me and Guy to have fought it out to the end, but I guess that’s rallying. He certainly pushed me all the way and it was looking like being pretty close.”
Such has been Meeke’s domination this season that of the seven IRC rounds he has contested, he and Irish co-driver Paul Nagle won five — including Azores, Brazil, Ypres and SanRemo — and were second twice; 66 points out of a possible 70.
“It’s awesome, absolutely awesome. I’m going to take my time to savour it because I don’t think we’ll ever have another year like this,” Meeke admitted.
Behind the duelling duo, local hero McRae nursed his battered and bruised Proton to third — the Malaysian manufacturer’s first-ever IRC podium — despite enduring gear problems through the final six gruelling stages.
“Today was a nightmare,” the 38-year-old former British champ said. “The conditions this afternoon were horrendous. It was a battle just to keep the car on the road for most of the time, but it’s a great result for Proton in only our third rally.”
With Bogie, who had been battling for fourth, crashing out — he and co-driver Kevin Rae were uninjured — the top five was completed by the Mitsubishi of Belfast’s Jonny Greer and the Subaru of fifth-placed Jock Armstrong from Castle Douglas.
In a final twist — hours after the thousands who watched the podium presentation on Stirling Castle’s Esplanade, under the watchful eyes of the giant statue of Robert the Bruce, had disappeared — Meeke’s victory came under threat.
Scrutineers identified a part of his car they believe to be under the legal weight. The part, the front cross member, will now be examined by the world motorsport body, the FIA, before a official decision is made in a couple of weeks.
JM