Robert Wins At Last

Two times runner up Robert Lindsay finally got his hands on the Connons Shield last weekend when he won the Catterline Cartie Challenge. With 26 carties taking part, the competition was fierce, but Robert beat the biggest field yet with his winning time of 33.90 seconds. There was heartache for Tequila Slammer, as they posted the fastest time of the day with 33.03 seconds, but also picked up a 5 second penalty at the Slammer - the corner they christened in 2005 - and had victory snatched from them.

Tequila Slammer had been in the lead after the first round, but soon slipped down the field in the second round as the other teams became more familiar with the combination of chicanes and slalom cones that tested both driver and machine to the very limit. By the end of the second round, Auld Alliance, Black Bomber and Bandit had all posted faster times - times which were not to be beaten for the remainder of the day.

The course had been laid out in the morning and featured a testing slalom section that started at Jimmy's and extended through the chicane at the Slammer. Avoiding the slalom cones proved very difficult and few teams managed to avoid them for the entire day. One of the teams that did were Bitter and Twisted with their cartie Once a Fortnight. Their driving accuracy coupled with their very quick cartie gave them the Constructors Trophy with an aggregate time of 107.91 seconds.

The newly tarmacked finish area (courtesy of W M Donald Ltd) meant the course could be extended slightly over last year, and this combined with the added technical difficulty of the slalom section, meant that the times were very slightly slower than last year. However, there were plenty of thrills and spills to keep the spectators entertained and several carties found the course too tough for them. Black Bomber, Flying Ferret, Pacemaker and Cartman Special all failed to complete their three runs due to mechanical failure.

Two new prizes were added to the trophy list this year; the Furthest Travelled and "The Great Catterline Cartie Race" award. The Furthest Travelled prize went to the Belchford Challenger, whose 417 mile trip from Lincolnshire was only 14 miles further than St Mary's journey from Nottinghamshire.

The other new prize was donated by local musician Dave Ramsay, whose song "The Great Catterline Cartie Race" is on the new Catterline Connections CD. The prize is awarded to the person / persons / event which the commentary crew and stewards feel, should be commemorated in a new verse of "The Great Catterline Cartie Race", and as well as being immortalized in song there is a trophy to accompany it, hand made by Dave from an old table from The Creel Inn. And the first person to be awarded this unique prize is Chief Marshal Lynne Fraser, who lost her footing and slid all the way down the bank while coordinating the time trials. Dave is still working on the verse, but he has let it be known that he is currently looking for something that rhymes with "grass".

Full times can be found here (4k KB PDF)