Duffy wins Tour of Mull 2009

Congratulations to Calum and Iain Duffy on winning the 40th anniversary Tour of Mull 2009!



After the first two Tobermory town stages on a cold, windy and very wet Friday night Duffy was seven seconds behind the 4WD leaders of Paul MacKinnon, Neil MacKinnon and Dougi Hall. On stage 3 from Glen Aros through Dervaig and over the Mishnish Lochs disaster struck for Duffy when a front wheel puncture dropped them all the way back to 24th place, losing 1min 32sec to leader Paul MacKinnon.

Stage 4 was marred by a nasty off for Neil MacKinnon on the Glen road, with both Neil and co-driver Mike Stayte suffering concussion and being taken to hospital by ambulance. Thankfully the injuries were not serious and they were both released later. At the end of the stage Duffy was starting to work his way back up the leaderboard, now lying in 12th place and 1min 35sec behind Paul MacKinnon.

Duffy was now on a charge, recording the fastest time for stage 5 and second for stages 6 and 7. At the end of Friday night they had recovered to 4th place overall, 1min 56 sec behind leader MacKinnon, 24 sec behind Dougi Hall and 8 sec behind a fast James MacGillivray in his Mk2.



Saturday afternoon saw Paul MacKinnon go out after putting his car off on the Loch Tuath stage. A marshalling mistake also saw Paul's car clip Duffy while trying to rejoin the stage, fortunately the damage was minimal and Duffy went on to record the fastest times for stages 8 and 9 and second for stages 11 and 12. This put Duffy into second place for the Saturday night, now only 38 sec behind Dougi Hall and 13 sec ahead of 3rd place John Cope, who posted fastest times for the second Hill road and Mishnish Lochs stages.

This set the stage for an exciting Saturday night with the unstoppable Duffy expected to overtake Hall on the night stages, but also with Cope and MacGillivray hot on his heels. As it ended up however, Hall lost over 5min from a puncture on the 23 miler stage 13, dropping him back down the field to 10th place. Duffy posted fastest time putting him in the lead for the first time in the rally, 14 sec ahead of MacGillivray who moved into second. Cope meanwhile had made a bad tyre choice, resulting in him dropping down to 4th place with Harper's BMW Mini only 1 sec ahead.

Duffy and MacGillivray recorded joint fastest time over the Mishnish Lochs on stage 14, 2 sec ahead of Cope who moved into 3rd overall, 2 sec ahead of Harper. Duffy now led MacGillivray by 45 sec, with 10 sec now only separating the 2nd, 3rd and 4th positions!

Scridain Stage 15 and Duffy extended his lead from MacGillivray by 5 sec, with 3rd place Cope now 3 sec ahead of Harper. Unfortunately, the Gribun Stage 16 was cancelled for safety reasons due to stray cows on the road and a subsequent incident.

So with only stage 17 left over the Hill road, Duffy had 50 sec in hand over MacGillivray, who led Cope in 3rd place by 6sec and Harper only a further 3sec behind in fourth.

Duffy tore through the final stage 15 sec ahead of MacGillivray to secure the 40th Tour of Mull, and his fifth win. MacGillivray finished a well deserved second and Harper managed to edge out Cope by 13 sec to gain 3rd place, meaning that the top 3 finishers of the 2009 rally were all 2WD!

Posted by wd40 on 2009-10-18 13:02:16 BST

tell a friend :: comments 0