Jardine overcomes ‘tricky’ conditions to secure top 10 finish at ‘baby RAC’

BRYAN Jardine excelled at the first Anglo Caledonian Rally, which was created to fill the void created by the Roger Albert Clark Rally being run bi-annually.

The Aughnacloy man, who had Declan Campbell on the notes, guided his MK 1 RS1600 Ford Escort to a superb eighth overall and first in class after two days of competition across 140 forest stage miles in northern England and southern Scotland.

As well as the testing loose surfaces, Jardine and Campbell also had to overcome incredibly wintry conditions, courtesy of Storm Bert, who brought wind, rain, snow and ice with him.

The conditions were similar to those Bryan’s dad, Alan faced when tackling the full-length Roger Albert Clark Rally back in 2021.

“There was another storm! It was nearly identical [to 2021] and that made it very tricky and difficult,” Bryan acknowledged.

“There was snow, there was ice, there was fog, there was rain. It meant we were going no great speeds but we kept plugging away at it to get through the Saturday. But Sunday was a great day and we were able to enjoy some good, clean stages.”

While he was able to relax a little bit on the Sunday, that was certainly not the case in the build-up to the two-day event and it most definitely wasn’t the case on the Saturday when conditions were at their worst.

“When I saw the weather forecast for snow, I was thinking ‘this is a disaster’, but it was a good experience and it was nice to say you’ve done it,” Bryan added.

“But when you’re in the middle of it, you’re thinking ‘why am I doing this!’.

“And that hit home on the first stage, about the fifth corner into it, I spun and had to reverse out of it and then about another mile further into the stage there was a guy standing there with an SOS board and my car just took off. She did a 360 down the stage, bounced off banks on both sides and ended up going in the right direction!

“And the guy was standing in the bank with his sign clapping, thinking it was well rescued but I can assure you I had no control over the car!”

Having survived those moments on Saturday, Bryan and his co-driver, Campbell, kept their car on the road and kept plugging away to reach the finish in a more than respectable position.

“It was a matter of just getting to the finish and we managed to come up with a result,” Jardine beamed.

“But it’s a super result and we did well hanging onto the two-litre boys. We did well and we’re very, very happy with our weekend.”

The Anglo Caledonian Rally is scheduled to take place bi-annually on years when it’s big brother, the five-day Roger Albert Clark Rally is not run.

And Jardine is planning to take on the RAC next year, keen to improve upon his debut result of second in the open class and 19th overall in 2023.

“That sort of event is appealing to me at the minute and we’re planning for next year as well,” he added.

“So I’ll do the big one next year and then I’ll maybe drop back and do the smaller one every other year because it’s a big commitment to do the big one every two years.”

Prior to next year’s RAC, Jardine is planning on competing in the Malcolm Wilson Rally in Cumbria in March when he will aim to surpass his third in class finish from last year.

Meanwhile, Donaghmore’s Adrian Hetherington and Ronan O’Neill also tackled the 16 stages of the Anglo Caledonian Rally that were run at the weekend, finishing 10th in class and 38th overall in their RS1800 Mk II Ford Escort.