Teenage rally driver Tom Cave rounded out his 2009 season with a fantastic result, finishing this weekend's RAC MSA Rally of Scotland in ninth place overall, second 2WD car and first Ford Fiesta. The 18 year-old drive another considered and mature event amid appalling conditions to bring his Group N Fiesta home through some of the most challenging conditions he has faced.
Approaching the event, Tom was somewhat apprehensive of the stages, since he had no experience of gravel roads in Scotland. However, co-driver Craig Parry had competed on the event previously and Tom hoped that Craig's experience would help.
The run-up to the event and most of the two days of action were swamped with heavy rain, which meant that the first day's stages were completely waterlogged prior to the start of the event. However, despite this, Tom adopted his trademark conservative start, feeling his way into the conditions and the nature of the stages.
It proved to be absolutely the right approach. It wasn't long before the competition, both in the N3 class and the two Fiesta R2s, of Kris Hall and Craig Breen began to suffer. On the first day, Hall suffered a puncture and Breen went off the road and retired from the day, leaving Tom as the front-running Fiesta and third 2WD car.
The second day offered the crews slightly better road conditions, as the stages on leg two ran through forestry land that had not seen a rally car for years. While this meant that the base was much more solid, it was still extremely slippery and required lots of care.
Tom was aware that with the problems faced by the competition on day one, he was perfectly placed to take the best result of his career if he could stay out of trouble. The first loop of stages in the morning went well for him, with the 33.52Km Loch Ard stage the best he had ever contested.
The final loop of stages was a repeat of the morning's and went without hitch. However, soon after the start of the final stage, Tom came across the cars ahead of him parked in the middle of the stage, as an earlier runner had gone off and blocked the road. It was subsequently annulled and the following cars were given a notional time which effectively formed the conclusion of the event.
Speaking after the finish of the event, Tom said: "Before the event, I would happily have taken 20th place if it was offered to me, so to finish inside the top ten, in ninth overall, is a fantastic way to end the season. I think it demonstrates the progress we have made this year in all areas and I am over the moon.
"It has been a very tricky rally, that's for sure. The conditions have been really bad - among the worst I have seen and we really had to be careful in places, to make sure we didn't go off or pick up any punctures, like so many others did. But we kept our heads, the car was perfect and we took the best result of our career so far.
"It would have been good to finish the second run through Loch Ard - the first time was amazing and I didn't want it to end but I'm just glad that everyone is OK.
"I have to say a huge thank you to the guys from Davies Motorsport Services for all their hard work, both in the run-up to the event and this weekend as well, making sure that the car was spot-on as usual. Also a big thank you to Yokohama for their support this year, with tyres and technical assistance. Once again, they proved excellent this weekend and helped us to get this result."
