Day 6 - Limavady to Belfast

Day 6 started off rather windy but the rain managed to hold back during the off at the Start Control in the Radisson Roe Hotel car park.

The day’s rallying began with a superb Test on the front drive of the Radisson Roe however, car 9, Ulf Jacoby’s Invita S Type, was absent due to an early morning retirement caused by the engine losing it’s oil pressure.

Within 20 miles competitors faced the second Test of the day at the old airfield at Aghadowey, now the home of a motor cycle race circuit, where car 29, John Aspinall and Dot Zappert in their Morgan Plus 4, found themselves going the wrong way and meeting car 34, George Brett and Hamish Cook in the Austin Healey 100/6, head on. Luckily contact was avoided.

The route then took crews east into the Antrim Mountains, through the beautiful Glenshesk before climbing up on to the coastal massif, for a Test and a rather special, yet challenging Regularity Section, in Ballypatrick Forest where car 15, Guido and Barbara Reinking, cracked the sump of their MG Magnette when entering a ford in the forest. Luckily a marshal was on hand to sprinkle flour on the leak stopping any environmental hazards.

The final Regularity Section of the event was at the famous Torr Head, one of the greatest Circuit of Ireland and Ulster Rally Stages. However, the highlight of the day, aesthetically, had to be the hexagonal columns of the Giant’s Causeway.

Unfortunately, just before lunch on the coastal Regularity Section, Alistair Caldwell and Sandra Deumel, in the 1955 AC Aceca Coupe, had to retire with a broken gearbox after tackling a set of 4 hairpin bends. They heard the gearbox go ‘bang’, rendering no more drive to the wheels.

The lunch halt was situated at the Bushmills Distillery before the participants began the last leg of the event which took them back to Aghadowey for a third Test prior to a long run out to Nutts Corner Motor Sport Centre for another.

Finally the route lead cars to a lap on the Dundrod race circuit before dropping down into Belfast to the finish at the spectacular Northern Ireland Parliament Building at Stormont. Keith Graham and Susan Hoffmann in the Austin Healey 100/4 (car 38 had a flat tyre in Belfast on the way to Stormont, but as luck would have it had stopped next to a garage who fixed it allowing them to make it in time to Stormont.

A gentle run back into Belfast saw participants to their hotels in plenty of time to dress up for the drinks reception and Prizegiving dinner, hosted by Belfast City Council at the splendid Belfast City Hall.

The overall winners of the event was Geoff Stewart and Peter Murray in their well prepared MGB with only 457 penalty marks.