Top Tarmac drivers head to Mullposted in RSCOT01 | 10 | 2012

    TEN DAYS BEFORE the 43rd running of Scotland's fastest closed-road event, the Tunnock's Mull Rally, organisers have been forced to close the entry list.

    "We're already over-subscribed," Clerk of the Course Iain Campbell admitted today. "We've got 120 of the fastest Tarmac drivers in the country already committed to tackling the three-day rally."

    The Tunnock's Mull Rally, which runs through October 12-14, is the oldest closed public road event to take place in the UK.

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    Competitors from all over Britain will flock to the Isle of Mull to test themselves over 17 stages and 153 competitive miles.

    The result is the highest-speed rally event in the UK to take place on tight, narrow, twisty and bumpy single-track roads.

    The final challenge is the fact the majority of the stages are tackled in pitch dark after nightfall.

    "There's nothing else like it in the UK," explained Campbell, who previously organised RallyScotland, Scotland's round of the Intercontinental Rally Championship.

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    "The pace is unrelenting, and the fact the crews have to tackle the blisteringly fast stages at night just makes Mull all that more extra special."

    Seeded No1, islander and previous winner Calum Duffy from Dervaig, co-driven by Iain Duffy, is again the man to beat in his highly-customised Ford Escort MkII.

    But he faces stiff competition from fellow Mull driver, 2005 winner James MacGillivray, and England's Daniel Harper. The Mini driver was the last non-Mull resident to win the event in 2002.

    Scotland's most talented young rally ace, John MacCrone, will dash back from the latest round of the World Rally Championship Academy in France to tackle the Mull event.

    "I couldn't miss my home event," the Dervaig-born driver, co-driven by Glasgow's Stuart Loudon, said. "It'll be a challenge, but we'll on the start line on October 12."

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    Jim McGill

     

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