The 1997 Jim Clark Rally was a unique event: it was the first closed road event to be held on mainland Britain. It was a real tribute to the Berwick & District MC organising team that it took place at all. They had been fighting for around 7 years to get an act of Parliament so that they could close the roads and suspend the speed limits for the rally. Now, in 1997, they had finally succeeded and the event ran from Friday July 4th through to Sunday July 6th. The JC was a round of the Scottish Rally Championship, but several crews were not regular competitors in this championship. There were three works drivers (Robbie Head, Mark Higgins, and Martin Rowe), and some privateers like ourselves from south of the border.

This was actually the second time that we had competed on the Jim Clark - the first time was in 1990 when it was a forest rally and a BTRDA Clubman's round. It was one of the very first events that Sue did! This time, the rally was based in Duns in the border country and had a completely new format. The first leg started at around 5.30pm on Friday and finished around midnight that night. The second leg started at around 5.00pm on Saturday and went all through the night finishing at around 6.00 am on Sunday. So while all of you were partying at the Southern Barbie, we were battling away through the night in Scotland.

As often with Sue's business travel, we had a less-than-optimum preparation for the rally. We were allowed to do pace-noting on 2 days, Wednesday and Thursday before the rally. However, Sue only flew in from a business trip to San Francisco on Wednesday morning, landing at Heathrow at 9.30 am. She went straight home, unpacked, did the washing, packed, went back to Heathrow with Graham and onto the 4.30pm flight to Newcastle (quicker than flying to Edinburgh when taking the road journey into account). We then hired a car from Hertz and drove up to our base at Coldingham on the coast, about 12 miles from Duns. We were obviously too late to do any pace-noting that night so we only had the one day.

The event itself comprised around 360 miles of which approximately 155 were on the 26 special stages, so it was a really long event. Because of this, we had bought our pace notes from Brian Patterson and we only managed to do most stages once during the recce. This isn't really enough to be absolutely sure that bought notes have been changed to suit your own car, but in the circumstances, it was all we could do.

The crew arrived with the car late on the Thursday night. We were using the Metro for only the second time since its re-shell, the first having been at Millbrook, where we were first in class. For the Jim Clark rally however, we were up against 3 Honda Civics, so we knew that we weren't really in with a chance unless they had a problem. The VTECs usually beat everything in the N3 class as well as N2! There was one other Metro Gti entered with David Williams of Motoring News driving so we were looking forward to our own private battle with him. Unfortunately, his car arrived too late for scrutineering so he could only enter the Clubman's event. It was disappointing that there were so few small cars out on the event. We are increasingly finding that there are very few 1300cc or 1600cc cars in any class. There is a general shift towards bigger and faster cars, which obviously must cost more money to run.

On the Friday, the car sailed through scrutineering as per normal and then we had to hang around until nearly 6pm for the start. You never quite know what to do with yourself during the day when you have an evening start. You are just hanging around like a spare part. Once the rally starts however, it is all go, as in any rally. All stages in Leg 1 were run at 30 second starts. To comply with the Blue Book, all cars had to start the Leg at 1 minute intervals, then immediately enter a regroup to leave at 30 second intervals. This meant that some of the cars were waiting up to 60 minutes in the re-group immediately after the start. A complete waste of time and totally stupid!

The Friday night consisted of 2 loops, each of 4 stages with a central service point well to the north of Duns. There were 2 speckie specials, each repeated twice, once in the light and once in the dark. Three of the stages were in the hills to the north of Duns, which included some very tricky roads. These were to claim many victims, including one nasty bend over a crest which caused 3 cars to crash and go no further. On the 2nd stage we got red flagged because of a bad accident, a car had rolled into a ditch in a bad position, and scattered broken glass across the road. Once given the all clear, we and 6 other cars proceeded at normal road speed, only to be overtaken by some cars which had not been red flagged, who were going flat out. This made the finish control chaotic, with 8 cars arriving in under a minute. The main feature of the speckie specials was a huge water-splash close to Duns, which completely covered the car [Ed's note - I hope they mean "road"] so that you didn't have a clue where you were going. We managed the ford okay, but several cars drowned, and others slid off the road on subsequent corners. The route to and from the service area had stunning scenery and perfect weather. Even with the limited time available, the views were not to be missed by rally or service crews. Indeed, once the rally started, we saw no rain and the stages were perfectly dry, except by the ford. We were extraordinarily lucky. The previous weekend was a washout.

The Saturday was a puzzle. What does a crew of 5 do when the rally car is in parc ferme, and we are not due to start until 6.00pm? The answer was have a lie in, stock up with food for the night, have a leisurely pub lunch, and then spend 2 hours on the sun drenched beach at Coldringham. We managed to go sun bathing, rock-pooling, enjoy a walk along the cliffs, and have an ice cream. This is not what we expect before 18 all action special stages.

Saturday night consisted of 2 legs, each of 1 loop of 9 stages, with a central service point in Duns. There was 1 speckie special, repeated twice, including the dreaded ford. Two of the stages were back into the hills to the north, but others were to the east and west. To our surprise, one of the stages to the east was less than ½ mile from our guest house. We had to be careful to avoid the local stage outside of the recce period, or we could fall foul of the strict rules, and lose our £200 cheque lodged as a surety! The stages to the south ventured close to England, near the town of Coldstream, as in the Guards.

There were large numbers on spectators out on all the stages on all 3 legs, even in the dead of night. We noticed that the people whose houses were on the closed roads were not yet as well organised as their counterparts in Belgium and France: over there, they organise huge parties during the rallies and invite all their friends in. On the JC, there were quite a lot of people sitting outside drinking wine and beer. On those stages near the towns, there were big crowds near the starts and the finishes. This was certainly a spectacle for the locals and rally enthusiasts to enjoy. Many of the local hostelries had bar extensions into the small hours and there was plenty of fast food available as well. Most roads near to the stages had no parking allowed. There were fields where parking was allowed at £5 per time, but this was not always popular with the thrifty Scots.

The event ran like clockwork and all credit is due to the organisers. The maximum number of cars was 120 and the entry was nearly full, including a clubman rally on the 2nd day. The stages themselves were much less bumpy than in Ireland with a mixture of open moorland stages and narrow country lanes and we found them challenging. The organisation was excellent and the only real complaint that we have is the same one that we have with most organisers: we never get any results during the day to tell us how we are getting on. It's always the same when you run near the back of the field and it is very unfair on the competitors. So come on you organisers: we pay the same entry fee as everyone else and we are usually locked in our own class battles so such information is vital.

The only controversy on the event came right at the end. As we arrived back at our liberally covered cow-field service area ( Thank God it wasn't raining much!), we saw the 2 Renault Meganes, who had been leading all the way, on their trailers waiting to depart whilst everyone else was in Parc Ferme, as per the regs. They had decided not to go into Parc Ferme and therefore not to figure in the results. The organisers did not agree with their decision and, following some lengthy arguments, the Renaults were eventually unloaded and put into Parc Ferme and thus declared the rightful winners. At the other end of the field, we ended up 4th in class behind the 3 Civics and 56th overall.