MCKNIGHT BEATS 2WDS ON SCOTTISH RALLY, BOGIE TAKES 50TH WIN
Dumfries local bogie wins 50th rally of his career.
Perhaps it was apt that on Cup Final day, north versus south, Saturday’s RSAC Scottish Rally was also a game of two halves producing not one, but two winning crews. Reunited with Kevin Rae as a one-off, David Bogie swept to his 50th outright career rally victory while Greg Mcknight and Harry Marchbank scored their first outright victory in the ARR Craib Scottish Championship.
This year, the Royal Scottish Automobile Club organising team had introduced the novel ‘two rally’ format with the two-wheel-drive competitors running first on the road through the day’s six forest special stages. The fourwheel-drive crews set off three hours later, and that meant two separate champagne finishes in Moffat High Street later that afternoon – or three if you count the Ecosse Challenge celebrations too.
Dust had been a problem for drivers the day before at the test day, but the breeze was much stronger come the rally and it negated the advantage that the first car on the road would have. Even so, the Skoda Fabia R5 of Bogie set off at a spanking pace through the opening Twiglees test, but ominously, only three seconds behind it was the Subaru Impreza of Jock Armstrong and Cameron Fair.
Things turned sour for Armstrong across the road in Castle O’er when the Subaru limped out of the forest with a rear puncture. More importantly, it was also almost a minute down on the leader.
Bogie was quickest again over a re-run of those same two tests pulling into Lockerbie Service with a 49-second lead over Freddie Milne and Patrick Walsh. Most interest was now centred on the battle for second place as Milne was at the head of a quartet of cars covered by 20 seconds with the Ford Fiesta R5 of Mark Mcculloch and Michael Hendry only three seconds behind.
Suddenly the race for the front took on a new impetus. Armstrong was quickest through the fifth test in Ae by five seconds from Bogie with seventh-placed Rory Young chasing a piece of the action. He was third quickest ahead of Mcculloch, John Wink (Hyundai i20 R5) and Milne’s Subaru Impreza WRC. However, the podium battle was reduced by one when young Lawrence Whyte’s Fiesta R5 slithered off the road and out of fourth overall in the loose conditions.
As the cars nosed into the final stage, there were still just three seconds between Milne and Mcculloch with Young now up to fourth, but as the cars appeared at the finish there was no sign of the blue Subaru. Milne had just “run out of road” when the car got two wheels on the loose at a tight righthander and beached itself, Milne robbed of his best finish.
That promoted a surprised Young to third place: “I didn’t start that well and didn’t really click until the fifth stage, but I feel genuinely sorry for Freddie [Milne], he just simply ran out of room and fell off the road.”
Mcculloch therefore finished the event as the runner-up.
“I was having a good fight with Freddie [Milne] and I actually got away with it twice on the last stage, and Freddie didn’t, so I was lucky,” he mused.
Sadly, Armstrong’s fightback into the points suffered a setback on the final test when he punctured for a second time and finished the rally in 10th place overall.
Bogie was left to reflect on a career which has now seen him take his 50th rally victory since he started competing in 2004.
“It may have looked easy, but it wasn’t,” he said. “When Jock [Armstrong] got a puncture on the second stage and dropped half a minute, that eased the pressure right away. The stages were hard and it was a case of managing the tyres to make sure I didn’t get punctures.”
Earlier, Mcknight had taken an equally impressive victory in the 2WD event, despite a string of niggles which hampered progress during the day.
At the end of the first stage, the crew found that a front shock absorber had lost all its oil and they had no spare. Later a misfire appeared, caused by the ceramic tops of the spark plugs fracturing, although he was fastest on five out of the six stages.
“We were still very lucky,” said Mcknight at the finish, “the alternator failed on the final stage and we didn’t have a spare one of those either.”
Still acclimatising to front-wheel drive, Iain Wilson set fastest time on the fifth stage to finish second overall ahead of Matthew Robinson making it an all-ford Escort top three.
In fourth place after a very impressive run was the 1600cc Vauxhall Corsa of Angus Lawrie with the MG ZR of Keith Riddick in fifth place just beating Steve Bannister by seven seconds.