Success at the double for Borders rally driver Alistair Brearley

Not only did the Galashiels 74-year-old, with East Ayrshire’s Gerry Bryden as co-driver, come out top of the championship’s C3 class in his Ford Escort Mk 2 but he also won a new award for competitors over the age of 65.

A broken clutch cable ruled his only competitor on the day, North Yorkshire’s Steve Bannister, with Callum Atkinson as co-driver, out of contention for the seniors’ award at the KNC Groundworks-sponsored championship’s closing Carlisle stage, but Brearley was pushed all the way by Graeme Sherry for the C3 trophy for rear-wheel-drive cars with engines up to two litres.

The Borderer ended up with 80 points after competing in six of eight rounds, the third being May’s Jim Clark Rally in the Borders, thanks to his haul of 16 at the Cumbrian stage, four ahead of North Lanarkshire’s Sherry, with John Brownie third on 49.

“I’m absolutely delighted to have finished the championship as class C3 champion and winner of the Haddo Energy super seniors award,” said Brearley, owner of the Moto Car Sales dealership in his home-town’s Dale Street.

“We found out early on that we had secured the seniors award after our nearest competitor retired from the event, but the class C3 championship went right down to the very last stage.

“At Carlisle in the class it was really down to two of us and I was one point in front of him going into it and he’d tended to be quicker than me throughout the year so I really had to be second to him and we would still win the championship but, as it turned out, I beat him. I think we finished 25th overall, something like that.

“We did the hard work throughout the morning stages to get into the position we needed, then controlled that position through the afternoon to finish the day with a dream result.

“The seniors award is a new thing in the championship, which was excellent for me as it gave me something to go for.

“I bought this car in 2017 but obviously with Covid we couldn’t do very much other than the odd bits and pieces so I looked up what classes there are in the Scottish championship that I could be competitive in because I hate just going out for a run. I have to have a target.

“The way the classes worked out the C3 for that car of mine was ideal so that was my initial target at the beginning of the year and then this seniors thing came up, so that gave me two targets to go for and fortunately I achieved them both, which was absolutely excellent.

“I’m absolutely well chuffed.”

Brearley has been competing at motorsport events since 1973 after being inspired by watching a rally at Northumberland’s Kielder Forest, a location also used by the championship’s Carlisle stage.

“I went as a spectator to one event and I thought I could do that, and that was it,” he recalled.

“It would have been the old Volkswagen Golf Rallye, an international one, down at Kielder.

“I competed up until 1986 and then I stopped rallying for near enough 40 years, but I had an itch that I couldn’t cure so I bought a car from a guy in Inverness and that got me back into it.

“I’m now considering what I’m going to do next year. I’m probably going to keep on going.”