Article reproduced from Irish Wheel Magazine, November 1972.  Report by Peter Scott.

Although the Championship navigation rallies have been cancelled for obvious reasons, the closed rallies are still continuing and in the middle of September the Cookstown boys ran their ‘Nutcracker’ Rally.

Few crews had a steady run, and eventual winners were Trevor Fleming and Brian Dorman in the Cawoods Fuels Cooper S, though they had covered the greater part of the route with little brakes.  The number two seeded car, the Escort of Paul Martin and Peter Scott, got off to a fine start but after only ten miles clobbered a bank and retired.  Leslie White and Drew Todd in the usual Escort TC, who had led most of the way and set the fastest time on the one special stage, had severe navigational problems at the end which dropped them well down the list.

Omagh Motor Club Secretary, Harry Johnston, who had Mike Hart in the hot seat of his VW 1302S, was going excellently and in fact set the second fastest time on the Davagh forest run, being only two seconds slower than Leslie White.  Unfortunately, he rolled the car and although he lost little time over this, it caused a lot of damage. They later got a wrong departure with a consequent large penalty.

The best run of the event was undoubtedly that of second place crew Kenny Thompson and Derek Smyth from Dungannon in a Cortina (Mk. 2) 1500 G.T. who lost the same on the road as Fleming/Dorman, but were beaten (as one would expect) on the stage.

Results
lst, T. Fleming/B. Dorman (Cooper S) 32.7;
2nd, K. Thompson/D. Smyth (Cortina GT) 36.1;
3rd, G. Campbell/G. Parker (Cooper S) 38.2;
4th, T. Rafferty/D. Riddle (Escort GT) 41.5;
5th, R. Burrows/B. Quinn (Mexico) 42.6;
6th, B. Clarke/D. Todd (Cooper S) 44.7.