Ewan Tindall shrugged off his 12-month absence from the sport to score a superb hat-trick of wins on the Argyll Rally.
A stunning drive in a new car netted the 2300 Club John Easson Award winner first in class, first FWD and first in the Scottish Junior Championship.
It was a brilliant result for the 20-year-old from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, who had never driven his Fiesta R2T in anger before last weekend’s event.
“The new car was great, it never missed a beat all weekend apart from a quick front hub change on the Saturday morning, and to come away with three firsts was perfect,” Ewan, who was co-driven by Andrew Roughead.
“We used Friday as a learning night with the car, and felt comfortable in the two town stages. But the three closed road stages to finish the night were challenging, trying to learn the car, the stages and get used to left hand drive again.
“We had a few wheels in the grass down the right hand side grass and Andrew kept shouting at me to get back onto my side of the road!
“Saturday was amazing. I wasn’t disheartened with Friday’s performance at all as I knew there was lots I could improve on.
“Right from the off on Saturday, it felt very good with the car and everything just seemed to click. We pulled a lot of time back to take the SRC junior lead by the second stage in the morning, then carried on up the leader board with the aim of finishing top FWD. And that’s exactly what we did after a good afternoon.”
The only disappointment for the pair was a one-minute penalty, imposed for clipping a chicane with his wing mirror, which dropped him from 17th to 23rd in the overall standings.
“To be hit with a one minute penalty for folding the wing mirror in on a chicane that had been tightened since the last pass through the stage, felt very harsh, and it took the shine off the weekend,”he said.
“Still winning class, top FWD, and top junior in SRC, even after the penalty, was some compensation
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