We have a bit of a quandary in our office at the moment. What do we call the Easter Stages?. By habit it keeps getting referred to as the Circuit. And to most real rally people it still is. Of course, when the decision to withdraw from the European Championship had to be taken before Christmas, it was the International Rally, The Circuit of Ireland, that was shelved in the short term. Technically the Easter stages was always the National part of the rally, the one day counter towards the Tarmac and the NI Championship. Despite this, it is still called the Circuit. As a result, we have decided, to call it the Circuit/Easter Stages for our own purposes. We know it’s real name is now the Triton Showers Easter Stages but its hard to shake off that Circuit name.
Now that this is sorted, we had a real pleasant day making the Patterson Pacenotes on Tuesday. With the recent cold snap of weather, Northern Ireland for once, wasn’t as badly affected as other parts of Britain. Even so, the roads were very frozen and the hills had a fair dusting of snow. The vast majority of the rally is on a very compact route just on foothills of the Mourne Mountains. Such where the views in places, that the words of the famous old Irish folk song, “where The Mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea” could not have been more apt. Competitors and Spectators are in for a real treat.
The Circuit/Easter Stages Patterson Pacenotes should be ready for despatch by Friday 15th if you want them mail order or they can be collected. Full on-line ordering facility is available here
tempting as it may be to call a short trash round a few lanes the circuit of ireland somehow without sally gap waterford killarney and 500 stage miles it cant be the circuit.
Ahh Steve Bond. If my memory serves me right you clocked a few of those 500 miles up your-self with one or two good drivers. Scribbling notes on the old basildon bond me thinks! We may lament the old days but it seems things can no longer be as they were. More’s the pity. At least we still have an event with the efforts of both Bobby Willis and the UAC. It could so easily have been a non event!
team woftam
Great little team. Never achieved much though! I wonder does anyone remember them. I do. Always well funded but things just never seemed to gel. Go woftam Go :-) B&L will love the reminder.
Give B and L my best wishes