Round 4 - The Rally Round Rally

"Chick" is quite worn out from Rally Round TT deliberations. Right up until the closing time for feedback she was still processing your various iterations of shortest route on some of the Route Cards as you declared increasingly cunning solutions. It did matter in the end though with just four points separating the top 9 placings. I think it was perhaps the most closely fought round in TT history. With some novel Route Cards and tricky plotting this was a fitting end to a challenging year of table-topping.

Masters
Steve Barber has had a steadily improving year so it came as no surprise that he won the Rally Round 2008 - his first win since Rally Round 2003. Robert Owen's 2008 form has been exemplary too, being nudged to second place on elapsed time; and Peter Smith, in third place, scored his second podium of the series. Previous 2008 round winners Gavin Rogers and Iain Tullie came 4th and 7th.

Experts
The top two was a repeat of the Schoolfrenz result: Steve Turnbull taking honours but just pipping Nigel Parrish into second place by 16 minutes. Dee Rampling Lee shared the same score of 49/50 but was displaced on time to 3rd.

Novices
Chris Bean came good again with a perfect score and a hat trick of wins, but five competitors vied for runners-up with Mark Dunkerley eventually taking 2nd and Martin Dewey 3rd.

Robert Owen, Dee Rampling Lee and Mark Dunkerley are award winners for best placed competitors who had not previously been award winners this year.

"Crow"

September 13, 2008 @ 16:30