Allan McNish, Le Mans winner
Three-times Le Mans winner Allan McNish has taken the chequered flag all over the world and still travels the globe as team principal of the Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler Formula E team. But when it comes to his Favourite Detour, he's very happy to let country roads and a 1984 short-wheel base Audi Sport quattro take him home to the Scottish Borders.
“I know those roads like the back of my hand.”
“The road from Dumfries, where I was born, to Edinburgh, the A701 is my Favourite Detour. That road is stunning. You drive to Moffat, and there are some beautiful corners just before St Ann's bridge over the Kinnel Water – it's a bit like going through Hawthorn Bend at Brands Hatch. It really is stunning. Then up the Devil’s Beef Tub, a deep hollow formed by four hills, Great Hill, Peat Knowe, Annanhead Hill and Ericstane Hill. It got its name because the Border Reivers used to hide the cattle they’d rustled there.
If it’s a sunny day, then I could take a convertible just to tootle along and see the countryside – but I know that inner me is still the wee kid who grew up in the Scottish borders wanting to be a racing driver, so I think I will keep it old school and go for an Audi quattro instead.
The quattro brings back fantastic memories of the Scottish Rally in the 1980s when it came to Dumfries, and Heathhall was one of the rest points. That was half a mile from our house, and I’d walk through the fields for a look and then go with my Dad and watch the quattros spitting flame on the stages. I’d have to have the short-wheelbase Sport quattro rather than the long one for extra agility over the A701.
I know those roads like the back of my hand, but I have an Argentinian friend who is a massive Jim Clark fan and has never even been to Scotland before. I have always promised him we will visit the Jim Clark Motorsport Museum one day and drive the Jim Clark Trail, which is still on the agenda once we finally get lockdown behind us.
It's a circular tour that starts in Duns, where the museum is located. There's the Jim Cark Café Bistro, where you can fuel up with a meal or a cup of tea and a slice of shortbread. Then, the first stop is Chirnside, where you can pay your respects at Jim’s final resting place at the parish church. Back on the road, you pass Edington Mains, where Jim used to farm and then it’s over the border into England and on to Berwick-upon-Tweed – the home of the club where he began his motorsport career.
You cross over the river Tweed heading south, and then, just past Norham, as the road twists around, you cross the Tweed again, this time heading north. That takes you over the border once more and back into God’s own country. After that, you pass Winfield Airfield, where Scotland's first-ever race meeting was held. Jock McBain won in his MG, and he later went on to form the famous Border Reivers racing team that Clark drove Jaguar D-types and Porsches for.
Motoring along in quattro, with that glorious five-cylinder turbo engine warbling away, the next stop is ten miles down the road. Charterhall Airfield is where the sport moved to after Winfield was abandoned, and it's where Jim saw his first-ever motor race in Scotland. Jim started competing in rallies and hill climbs before driving in his first race at Crimond in Aberdeenshire. That was in his friend Ian Scott-Watson’s car, which funnily enough was a DKW Sonderklasse, and DKW is of course an ancestor company of Audi.
The Jim Clark Trail is a great drive and a great way to pay homage to the man from Chrinside who went on to win the F1 World Championship twice, the Tasman series three times, the Indy 500 and stand on the podium at Le Mans. There's no doubt about it, the best racing drivers in the world are born and bred in the Scottish Borders!”
Words Angus Frazer