The
weather was awful for July, the ground is sediment (This part of Lincolnshire used to be under the sea) the
drains couldn’t cope with heavy rainfall. Local streams started to
flood, which spread into the already full river and soon Louth and
surrounding areas up to
South Yorkshire
were flooded.
Needless to say the rally had to be
cancelled, a flippant comment by
Karen Spencer of “if it’s like this
next year, we should have a duck race” was remembered.
The following year as a joke, each
competing car was given a small yellow plastic duck with their competing
car number on.
Jokes abounded, Ducks were kid (duck)
napped, ducks were strapped to aerials, roll cages and generally they
all completed. Everyone agreed the ducks had lifted the spirits of
another damp rally.
Now wind the clock on, to the Pirelli
rally 2008, someone mentioned the duck team was back together,
Slaithwaite, Huddersfield, David Browns, Lindholme, Buccaneer, basically
a few Yorkshire clubs who get together
occasionally and run stages on events.
Now wind the clock a little more, a duck
wearing a helmet was spotted on
www.justducks.co.uk just had to be ordered.
Stirling as I was now named was taken to
the Autosport show and I had my picture taken with as many famous motor
sport people as possible with an idea of building a facebook web site to
cheer up marshal’s and lift spirits… I really enjoyed myself.
The Pirelli in 2009, Team Duck was
planning a stage on the Jim Clark IR 2009, Martin Pullan spotted a box
of cheap (yes I know… chickens go cheap, ducks go quack) box of plastic
ducks, so he bought a few hundred.
All the marshals going into Harehead stage were given
a duck to put on their car aerial… it was a great sight loads of ducks
travelling through stage. The police car even had a duck, the stage was
a great success and Team Duck felt rightly proud of themselves.
So, what next. Chatsworth rally show, we
took 100 ducks and as you can see from the pictures even Mark Higgins in
the Aston Martin, Perez in many of his cars and Mika Hirvonen competed
with ducks on their cars… Steve Smith the current HRCR champion said the
little yellow ducks put a smile on his face as the weather was awful.
We have held a Production Car Trail with
ducks, some ducks have been to Le Mans and hopefully ducks
will come to represent in a very inoffensive way a group of friends who
enjoy motorsport, each others company.
Ducks are currently competing on sprints
with Ian Beech, the Opposite lock rally, The Duckeries rally wasn’t the
success Martin Shaw (Spotty Escort) had hoped for, but I am sure his
duck will come out to play again.
We are grateful to
Galloway recovery who are taking their duck out on rallies
and to a rescue unit with a sense of humour for carrying their duck, the
Navy now have a duck in a submarine and the Stobart trucks will soon be
carrying the Ford WRC team and a duck on the aerial.
