Following on from a superb debut ride by Irishman Richard Kerr at the opening round of the Pirelli National Superstock Championship last weekend at Oulton Park, another branch of AMD Motorsport were also in action on four wheels at the same time.
Stephen Thompson, who is the General Manager at AMD Contract Services, the Dumfries-based company owned by Fraser and Mary Dykes, where they run a plant hire and contracting business servicing the construction and forestry sectors throughout the UK, was contesting the Argyll Stages Rally.
Based at Dunoon Stadium with closed road stages around various locations of the Cowal Peninsular, this years’ Mull Car Club event started on Friday night with five stages throughout the evening followed by another eight stages throughout Saturday.
In the two-litre AMD Ford Escort Mk2, Stephen, from Kirkcudbright and co-driver Larry Higton from Newton Mearns were seeded at 23 in the 120-car field and got off to a steady start on the two short opening stages around Dunoon town centre before upping the pace out in the lanes to set 16th fastest time on the final stage of Friday night to maintain their 23rd position overnight.
Saturday saw two loops of four stages and the pair continued their good form with top twenty stage times in the morning to move up to 13th overall before moving up the leaderboard in the afternoon stages to set some impressive times which culminated in a superb 12th place overall at the finish.
As a result, they won Class 7 and were second two-wheel drive car home behind Irish champion Damian Toner out of the 79 finishers in a field which included many top international drivers in semi-works machinery.
Drone footage from the event is available here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/5ut3hxy9ej6uyuz/AAAT0iyZGXvwPi-yYx9cA3Ica?dl=0
Pictures attached courtesy of Eddie Kelly.
