After leading the BRC round, the RSAC Scottish Rally, from the second stage until the second last stage, Welshman, Osian Pryce, who was joint leader of the Championship going into the weekend, came away from Scotland with no points, retiring with gearbox issues at the start of the last stage.
Pryce, from Machynlleth, Powys with Dale Furniss alongside, was annoyed with himself at dropping 2 seconds on Friday’s only short spectator stage to Dan McKenna in an identical Citroen DS3 but started his charge early on Saturday to take the lead and was not headed until his retirement.
“We could have continued to the end but the gearbox was getting worse and I don’t know whether we would have made it or not. We then decided to treat this rally as dropped score from our Championship and retire. This may be a gamble but to have driven on would have meant a total loss on the gearbox, whilst it might be repairable just now.”
“Towards the end of the stage after service it wouldn’t take 2nd gear, it just went from 1st to 3rd. This continued on the next stage. It’s a sequential ‘box so I was having to double shift to get through where 2nd should have been. This was losing us more time. Then on the 9th stage it smashed through 3rd gear as well and we only had 1st to 4th gears. With SS10 having an uphill start and a lot of tight corners we would have done more damage by continuing.” sums up a dejected Pryce. “We even got a puncture on that stage in a really fast section that put us off up a bank for a bit.”
“Even before then, on the longest stage my window dropped out. The dust that was coming into the car was incredible. I could hardly see as it was just circulating around the car. It was 14 miles that stage but it could have been 114 miles to me. I have never felt like I was going to be ill whilst driving before but I was there, with swallowing all that grit.”
McKenna finished to take his second maximum points this year and move into the lead of the Championship. The next round is on the Irishman’s home soil, the Ulster Rally.
“The Ulster is going to be exciting, it’s Dan’s home round but we will have No.1 on the door and I’m really looking forward to the battle and to getting these points back.” said a determined Pryce.
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