We're home, at last

The head's still sore after the weekend...

So, we're all back safe and sound after the annual Red Mist jaunt to Donegal to marshal at their rally. This year was no different, just a slightly different crew. The CaseyRallySport gang were there also, but were there to run one of their Peugeots for the weekend. Also there was Ragworth and his cronies, but the less said about them, the better

Big T, Macca, Dan, Topaz (aka Skippy) & BunBun arrived on Thursday, after spending about eight hours getting there. Camper, Pippi & Johnny (Camper's hard suffering Father) arrived on Friday night, doing the journey in six hours. On getting there, Topaz left Down Under (Aussie land to the uninformed) to go and marshal, and spent about two to three days getting home....

On the Friday, Big T, Damien, Dan, Macca Topaz & BunBun went marshalling, with Big T on the maps, which was a bad idea, as the arrived in a village and Big T wanted to get money from the ATM. Unfortunately, Big T had brought them into Northern Ireland, and he was about to get sterling (fat lot of good that would have been in Donegal) but the timely intervention of BunBun saved Big T's blushes....

Saturday arrived, but the group was split. Camper & Pippi went off and were stuck doing results at the end of the Knockalla, stage seven and in service as well, talk about multitasking.... The rest (Friday's crew plus Johnny) went off to marshal on Knockalla. Guess what happened. Big T was on the maps (again!) and got lost (again!). They were marshalling at the Church, the jump after the church and at location 18. The stage went well, despite our best efforts. The end of the stage however, was not the best. Ragworth was doing Stop Car, and unfortunately Camper & Pippi had to suffer Ragworth while performing their duties. Ragworth, as usual, was doing his best to reopen old wounds with the Retro, but he failed....

Ragworth however was useful at the end of the day. He knew about the presence of a decent seafood restaurant in Carrowkeel and we all invaded. We were introduced to Nicola, a "colleague" of Ragworth from Galway. The less said about the that evening the better, but Nicola can consider herself a (very) probationary member, that is to say that the official Red Mist Sticker was placed on her car... As you can guess, Big T got lost again on the way home, and ended up in a local "Civic Amenity Site"

Sunday saw the gang on Atlantic Drive, with Locations 1, 3, 4 & 10 covered by the us. Camper & Johnny drew the short straw, and were marshalling at a pub, with loads of lubricated rally spectators, helicopters and general mayhem in place. Macca & Topaz were on location 1, where a Civic did a fine job on a pair of gates, with the pillars, drive & garden all suffering in the process. The rest had a quiet day, except for Pippi, who was stuck in the HQ in the results office..... At this stage, Big T was most definitely kicked off the maps, and Johnny took over the navigation. As a result of the excellent navigation, we were about an hour early for the marshalling meeting point.

An executive decision has been taken that none of the alcohol fuelled antics will be mentioned on the site, but I'm still waiting for the video evidence of the covering of BunBun's car with Red&White tape. I've also got no photos, as I was marshalling but I'm expecting some soon. Macca "found" his camera Monday night, fat lot of good it was then....

Casey RallySport had technical issues on Saturday lunchtime, and the carbs packed up putting them out of the rally. Liam Brennan was providing ballast for Frank Kelly as only he can, and Mr Kelly was there handing out the marshal's grub. Oh, just a note to Bob, I've got the piece of the bumper that fell off in the boot of my car.