Life in the red-hot seat with Rory Galligan

Posted: May 16, 2000 3:15 PM

It was one of the rides of my life; Rory has 110% faith in Brian Patterson-made pace notes and drove the stage as if his reputation rested on it. At no point did Rory ever lift over any of those numerous blind crests; his arms and legs just a wonderful blur of crazed but obviously controlled motion!

Incredibly, at the stage finish, we had set a blistering time, much to the dismay and disbelief of our fellow competitors and, more surprisingly, actually bettering the two ‘works’ Peugeots of Justin Dale and David Higgins! I was in need of some immediate refreshment as my voice had almost gone from the continuous barking of pace notes for the last seventeen minutes.....but boy!.........it was worth it!

That concluded the first day’s rallying with us lying 13th overall on the event and fourth Peugeot.....we were back on the ‘dance floor’ with a good chance to fight back. Sunday morning dawned sunny and warm and it was back to Kielder for an almighty 29 miles stage at Whickhope... and what a stage it turned out to be!! After 5 miles of flat-out seat-of-the-pants stuff, Rory misheard one of my notes.....He thought I’d said "Two left and two left" when I’d actually said "Two left and three left"!
Off we went, at speed, into one of those infamous boggy Kielder ditches..... Fortunately, there were spectators in attendance who managed to get us back on the road but we had lost 3.5 minutes.
We’d got 22 miles to go and, with roughly 9 miles left, we’d managed to catch the dust of Paul Wedgbury. We’d seen the overnight leader, Ryan Champion, parked up with a broken wheel and carried on in hot pursuit of the Cadbury chocolate-coloured 106. We had to stop 5 or 6 times because of the thick dust but, neverthelesss, we were glad to reach the end. Our excursion had cost us 3 places but we persevered nonetheless.

Stage 10 in Bewshaugh again saw us blitz the opposition and again set a time faster than our ‘professional’ chums contesting the International rally, moving us up to fifth place in the process. The final test was the notorious 17 miles in Kershope Forest. Anything could happen to the boys in front of us on such a tough demanding stage, so it was heads down and full speed ahead.

Everything seemed fine until we came to a flat out jump in fifth gear.... the landing wasn’t particularly the best, the front right corner landing first with a hefty thud, but the damage had been done. Two miles later, at a flat out "One left and two right", the suspension broke, leaving Rory with no steering. Off we veered into one of those magnetic boggy ditches again.... Unfortunately this time, we were halted by a rock the size of a dustbin which we hit almost head on, catapulting us into the air and over onto the roof...... It was a ‘biggy’. Rory shouted to me to get out as he thought we were on fire..... He was right! The spectators on hand helped me out and then proceeded to douse the flames licking around the engine compartment before pushing it back onto its three remaining wheels.

Amazingly, I recognised our rescuers. They were the same bunch of guys who’d dragged us out earlier that morning! They obviously know the best places to stand in!
Then, out of the dust, appeared Martin Sansom, walking back down the stage! He’d had a wiring loom problem, Kevin Furber had suffered the same as us one mile further up the track and Andy Burnell had lost the use of his clutch with only one mile of the stage to go! What a final twist to a very strange tale! Next round - Red Dragon Rally in South Wales on July 3rd 2000.