[woodcote]

Stage Three: Titnore Lane

Winner: Ryan Walker, SRC Porsche 914/6 GT

   

Last to run on Stage 2 and first on Stage 3... Ollie, Mike, Kev, Rob and Isaac were the first to try the new 2026 update of Titnore Lane, based on a fabulous old-school country lane located just up the road from the Barn. This stage got tweaked through last season and we now have possibly the definitive layout - shortened in places, with smoother transitions for the elevation changes, borders and barriers where they are needed, plus the retention of the chicane-curve entry to Titnore Way (the Tesco rat run) which was added last autumn. Mike's NSR Abarth ate up the new stage in 44.74 seconds for the four 'laps'.

   

Group B were next through, Rob leading Matthew in an SRC Porsche 1-2, but 4.65 seconds behind Mike's Abarth. James set an excellent fourth quickest time of the group with a Ninco Porsche 911SC and Steve's Audi Quattro was just a second behind Rob's RS200 in a nice vintage Scalextric battle. Simon's brand new Scalextric Subaru WRX wasn't the quickest, but certainly looked fabulous on the stage...

   

Group A were next. Each with an SRC Porsche at their disposal, we were expecting some fast times...

   

Steve obliged with a 47.58, beating Phil's Porsche by nearly a second. However, Ryan's 914 was quickest with a 42.85 stage time, 0.72 of a second ahead of Terry. Oliver just failed to make it an SRC Porsche 1-2-3, falling 0.04 short of Mike's NSR Abarth.

   

Last through the stage were Group D. Titnore Lane usually favours the light and nimble SRC and Scaleauto cars, but could we see a challenge from elsewhere? Perhaps Jeremy's 3D chassied cars or the fast Nincos of Scott and Andy? Again Jeremy's challenge faltered - his quickest car the Ninco Citroën C4. Faster were Andy's Ninco Subaru and Porsche 911SC - but only good enough for seventh and eighth on the stage. Scott's Porsche 991 was again quickest of the SCX cars - and his Porsche 959 was top Scalextric car, a couple of seconds ahead of Rob & Steve. Stephen beat Kevin in their club car duel, but both were beaten by Simon.

Here are the results from Titnore Lane...

   

Our top five cars after three stages looked like this...

1. Mike Dadson, NSR Abarth S2000 - 129.72 seconds
2. Andy Player, Ninco Subaru Impreza - 134.09
3. Terry Peters, SRC Porsche 914/6 GT - 134.10
4. Oliver Walker, SRC Porsche 914/6 GT - 135.38
5. Ryan Walker, SRC Porsche 914/6 GT - 135.75

Jeremy's TR7 was now 12.19 seconds of the lead of the rally.