In an effort to answer some of the points raised on the running of the 2000 Tour of Mull I have clustered the main points raised through the questionnaire and attempted to answer them. It would be impossible and impractical to try to respond to each and every point raised, this will hopefully give people a better understanding of why we do things the way we do.
Many comments on the Service halt on the Friday night section – too long 2 hours plus.
Agree entirely. Comments from earlier event surveys 1998/99 indicated that competitors would like a change of route. As 2000 was my first year as Clerk of the Course it seemed the ideal time to make the change. I was reasonably happy with the way Saturday afternoon and night ran, however Friday was unacceptable with the extended Service time. The problem I had was, I needed to get all the cars at the back of the rally down the west side of the Island and into Gribun before I could run the front of the rally back up the same road. In previous years the Service time has been artificially absorbed by a longer road section to the following stage, something I could not do in 2000. Coupled with the delays in starting stage 1,2,3 I had no option other than to extend the Service time on the night to approx. 2 hours. 2001 will not suffer from this problem.
Stage starts delayed more than normal.
Yes they were, this was purely down to the atrocious weather.
The Safety Officer and Chief Marshal had to spend a lot more time than normal stopping in stages and putting arrows back up, re-taping driveways etc. which had been blown away by the strong winds.
Results not as good a previous years.
We did suffer more than normal this year, the main problem again being the weather causing land lines (which we use extensively for results) to go down.
We did suffer from equipment failure and manning problems, all of which are recognised and will be addressed for 2001.
Stages started and finished in strange places.
Stage 1 started half way up Glen Aros for the simple reason that if I ran the whole of the Glen linked to Calgary Bay it would be cleanable by about the first 15 cars.
By missing out the first 6 miles of this road (which is also the fastest section) brought the average speed down and made it a viable stage.
The finish of Ensay/Laganulva on Saturday afternoon has also been mentioned, this finishes at Eos Force as we have a sensitive PR area further down that road. Its also on the limit of 8 miles which is the maximum stage length running at 30 second starts.
Prize Presentation too long.
Agree, I can’t shut him up!!
Marshals did an outstanding job.
It’s great that so many people recognised this and commented on it. I would also like to thank them for an outstanding contribution under such terrible conditions. Hopefully 2001 will be better to us.
Clive Molyneux
Clerk of the Course
