Rally Driver Sues Map Maker For £2m After Crash!

[dark]

The Scotsman (Thursday 26 Nov)

Unbelievable! Can't believe this even made it to court.

Hope they throw it out and bill him for wasting everyone's time!

Mark

[corsa]

Ray Monros a C***k anyway.

I have used Bills maps on many occasions and never a problem.

Notes are a "guide" its up to the crew as to how they want to drive the route.

Davie

[DR Motosport]

Strange one this.

I read about this in todays Record too. But in that paper it states in, 2004 the corner was descibed at 40deg, but in 2001 the same corner was a 70 deg (much tighter). So was it a mistake in the notes.

Also strange that he was the only one to crash, but then again not everyone would take the notes in the same format.

[badbaz]

My thought too was how many crashed?

This country is f*cked beyond belief for the sh!t that people can claim for!

[thefastone]

"The Hearing is to last several days" Em, how? I cant see how that could possibly take that long to decide that its rubbish, you sign on the dotted line when you enter that "Motorsport is Dangerous" you know the risks when you go into it, if you cant take the consequences, then you shouldn't commit.

And trying to shuffle the blame onto someone else just isn't on IMO...

[scooby222]

i hope its thrown out very very quickly

something like this could kill off motorsport at this level-the insurance cover to run events would make them impossible to run,pee's me off as much as them charging for every stage of the irc

[scouk]

YEah this sounds dodgy... In fairness maybe there was an error in the notes.. But it's taken this long to create a case? And really, with no other crew goign off or even reporting such a significant error at end of stage (I'm assuming) then this suggests it wasn't such a problem. Many drivers tend to read the road as well as rely on pace notes.. If his co-driver mis read a pace note and they crashed.. Would he sue them for £2m?

I really can't see why this has resulted in a court case.. And for £2m Where'd that value come from? THe end of his rallying career /hobby and the fall of his business? I can understand loosing faith in the pace notes if they are incorrect but on accident should not put a proper rally driver off! and loss of business as a result of one accident with no physical injuries? Hmnn... It's either one hell of a shock to the guy, which would suggest to me he's better out of competition or looking for some easy money to dampen a failing business..

We have a few competition drivers posting on here.. What are your views? Or are you all signed up to give evidence on the pace notes at that rally?

.. Couple after thoughts.. Anyone know what Special Stage and corner it was? Also many of the early 2000 stages were repeated each year and local competitors got to know the stages pretty well!!

Edited to add: Just figured it out.. Retired Stage 6 on 2004 Speyside stages.. That was the infamous Clashindarroch stage.. THat's been run for years!! Even before the speyside stages.. That used to be one of the stages of the stages on the Granite city and I think Snowman years back! Also one of the favourites among drivers I believe because it's a long tricky stage!

[scouk]

Report from Berwickshire Advertiser Aug 26th 2004:

But there was a controversial ending to the rally for newly-crowned County Saab champ Raymond Munro. The Inverness driver, running second at the time, crashed out on stage six at Clashindarroch and the Highlander, who faces a substantial repair bill to his former Juha Kankkunen Impreza, was swift to absolve both himself and his new co-driver Heather Connon from any blame.

"We paid the price for being first car on the road," Munro explained afterwards, "and I would like to emphasise the crash was not the responsibility of myself or, more importantly, Heather. The corner was simply not as we expected it to be according to the information we had been given prior to the start of the rally."

Munro found himself tackling a left-hand corner, which should have been negotiated at 40mph, at 70mph. In addition, he explained he was advised to cut the corner but his nearside wheels clipped the foundations of a wall which sent the car spearing towards a bank on the other side of road. The Impreza eventually toppled and came to rest on its side blocking the road six miles into Clashindarroch and forcing the stage to be stopped.

Despite the heavy panel damage, neither Munro or Connon suffered any injuries and they were eventually able to drive the car out of the stage.

Full Article: http://findarticles.com/p/news-articles/be...s/ai_n33879898/

Could be the poor guy has taken on the mission of tryign to place blame somewhere and "possibly" concentrated too much on that than concentrating on his own business? Just a thought... Particularly in the current financial climate...

[scouk]

OK I'm goign to have to stop replying in a sec..

It's possible the reason there were no further incidents, was because hte crew called the stage officials giving their thoughts that he pace notes were wrong for that corner and that info was passed onto the rest of the co-drivers at the start of the stage.. So they knew a car had already been off at that corner and that to take it easy!!

Still can't quite see how it could get to court for that sum of money though.. "Motorsport is Dangerous!" after all.... One to Watch..

... Right.. off to do somethign more useful...

[kennyuk300]

OK I'm goign to have to stop replying in a sec..

It's possible the reason there were no further incidents, was because hte crew called the stage officials giving their thoughts that he pace notes were wrong for that corner and that info was passed onto the rest of the co-drivers at the start of the stage.. So they knew a car had already been off at that corner and that to take it easy!!

Still can't quite see how it could get to court for that sum of money though.. "Motorsport is Dangerous!" after all.... One to Watch..

... Right.. off to do somethign more useful...

Thats a cliffhanger ,what you up to now?

Kenny

[scouk]

Thats a cliffhanger ,what you up to now?

You really wanna know! Trying to figure out how to diagnose a dodgy ABS problem with the car that doesn't flag up an error code

.. but that'll probably result in a different thread altogether

you did ask

[DR Motosport]

YEah this sounds dodgy... In fairness maybe there was an error in the notes.. But it's taken this long to create a case? And really, with no other crew goign off or even reporting such a significant error at end of stage (I'm assuming) then this suggests it wasn't such a problem. Many drivers tend to read the road as well as rely on pace notes.. If his co-driver mis read a pace note and they crashed.. Would he sue them for £2m?

I really can't see why this has resulted in a court case.. And for £2m Where'd that value come from? THe end of his rallying career /hobby and the fall of his business? I can understand loosing faith in the pace notes if they are incorrect but on accident should not put a proper rally driver off! and loss of business as a result of one accident with no physical injuries? Hmnn... It's either one hell of a shock to the guy, which would suggest to me he's better out of competition or looking for some easy money to dampen a failing business..

We have a few competition drivers posting on here.. What are your views? Or are you all signed up to give evidence on the pace notes at that rally?

.. Couple after thoughts.. Anyone know what Special Stage and corner it was? Also many of the early 2000 stages were repeated each year and local competitors got to know the stages pretty well!!

Edited to add: Just figured it out.. Retired Stage 6 on 2004 Speyside stages.. That was the infamous Clashindarroch stage.. THat's been run for years!! Even before the speyside stages.. That used to be one of the stages of the stages on the Granite city and I think Snowman years back! Also one of the favourites among drivers I believe because it's a long tricky stage!

The Clashindarroch stages are so long that they can be used in multiple combinations of stage start and stops, not including reverse runnings. Last year the Speyside stages used it for 2 runnings, this year it also had 2 runnings. All 4 stages were different. Learning the stages would be nigh on impossible for a part time rally driver.

Running 1st on the road, Munro's accident would either have stopped the stage or spectators / co-driver would have slowed on coming cars down. This would maybe explain no other accidents.

Maybe someone on here can confirm this. But being a non-International rally there is no recceing (spelling) of the stages, so the only option is to buy the pace notes, and these would be available in various formats.

I don't agree with this case going to court, but if your running at a pace to win the rally your not holding back, and if those notes are not correct - it could have ended up in a more serious accident not just to the driver but to spectators too.

[rallyfever]

Cannae believe this story, I used Scotmaps loads and they were always fine when used as a guide (As they asre meant to be used). If Mr Munro wants to blame his business demise on anything, he wants to use the same excuse everyone else does - the credit crunch!!! I feel sorry for Raymond and his business - but he doesn't need to bring down others just because he's had a bit of a downturn.

The point the Mr Munro only finished "2nd" in a rally was also a joke - if he was that good and could guarantee a win every time he would be in the WRC - not the SRC (No disrespect to the SRC - I did it for a number of years and loved it. Great starting ground for youngsters and the quality clubman die-hards)

Mr Sturrock I support you all the way fella - hopefully the Courts will too.

Cheers

Gary (Rallyfever)

[corsa]

Ray monro struggled to get a helmet to fit him for years.

Due to the size of his head.

Not a nice man to have in the sport and that goes back to the good old days of the Trossachs Rally.

Hope Bill Sturrock ends up winning and getting costs back.

davie

[the_ex_leper]

route notes are not exact thats why you get the dvd so that you can look through and ammend them before the rally.they are not ment to be taken as gospel.ive used bills note as on offical and found them to be very good

Edited November 26, 2009 by the_ex_leper

[zeolite]

Pace noes are a guide and not definitive. I wondered how long it would be before this happened. So what next? will a driver sue a co-driver for calling a note wrong? At your own risk Munro! I know Heather Connon and her family and they are a pretty down to earth bunch.

I have used notes on the Jim Clark and I have found mistakes in the (Patersons) notes which we corrected but on the SRC you don't get to practise or even check.

If this is upheld it will totally transform gravel rallying.

[scouk]

Maybe someone on here can confirm this. But being a non-International rally there is no recceing (spelling) of the stages, so the only option is to buy the pace notes, and these would be available in various formats.

As far as I know that's correct theres no recce available for the stages.. Also for the past coupel of years the SRC has tried to leave things as late as possible before releasing details of stages so crews dont go up a few weeks before hand to scout the stage. Which is why there is the need for the one size fits all pace notes. Which are, as rightly said, a guide. But does sound like a nasty error. Which on all the notes produced for all the events, it's always possible your going to miss something along the way or theres not enough detail of every pebble on the surface...

But worthy of a £2m court case? I wouldn't have thought so..

[corsa]

Just had a quick read of Bills site ( scotmaps) and funnily enought theres a testimonial from Mr Monro!!!

Raymond Munro (2003 Scottish Rally Champion)The notes we get from Scotmaps are excellent, and the video/DVD they provide certainly increases your confidence in the notes so that I can commit absolutely 100%. Having competed at all levels of the sport in the UK, I would now be reluctant to rally anywhere else where Scotmaps were not providing notes.

Strange but true.

Davie

[scouk]

Whoops!

Hopefully that testimonial will be mentioned in court!

[thefastone]

Ha! the irony!

[rig-pig]

what a