Rally reports
Grampian victory hands Focus man a third Scottish title.
Euan Thorburn and Paul Beaton joined an elite group at the weekend when they won the Grampian Forest Rally and clinched their third Scottish Rally Championship title.
Thorburn now joins a very small band of drivers who have won more than two national titles in the category’s 62-year history: Ken Wood and Raymond Munro (three), Drew Gallacher (four) and David Bogie (five), so perhaps Thorburn’s job is not yet done?
Jock Armstrong and Kirsty
Riddick finished second overall while a tremendous scrap for third place was resolved on the last stage in favour of John Wink and Neil Shanks.
Fears for poor rally-day conditions proved groundless after Friday’s storm lashed and water-logged roads. Although the first stage was shrouded in thick mist for the early runners, the sun actually appeared through the murk and burned it off to reveal a warm and very clammy day in the woods.
But conditions remained tricky as Thorburn explained: “There’s plenty of grip on the open parts of the stages, but it’s very wet and slimy under the trees.”
That might well have explained his cautious start to the day with Armstrong taking fastest time over the first two tests in his Subaru Impreza. He was 11 seconds in front as the crews headed towards the longest stage of the event at Drumtochty. Thorburn
responded with a blistering time over the 10-miler in his Focus WRC taking 14s out of his rival to lead the rally by 3s.
“There were lots of hairpins in there,” said Armstrong, “wide open bends that double-backed on themselves, and that’s where the old Subaru loses out to the ‘world’ cars.”
The third test is also where Bruce Mccombie lost his grip on third place overall. Four seconds behind Thorburn after two stages, the ‘other’ Focus WRC punctured a front tyre.
“It was about three miles from the end of the stage,” said Mccombie. “We smelled it first before it went down!” At the end of the stage, Mccombie’s margin over Donnie Macdonald’s Ford Fiesta R5 had been reduced to 2s with Wink in his Hyundai i20 R5 fancying his chances of moving up from fifth.
In the first stage after lunch, there was a change for third. Macdonald emerged from the trees with front nearside damage having slid into a ditch, but it was mostly cosmetic. Wink moved ahead into third after a second puncture slowed Mccombie but he was still only 9s behind with two stages remaining.
However Wink was determined to hang on to his first visit to the podium on a Scottish forest event, although that looked in doubt at the end of the penultimate stage as Mccombie had swept past to retake third by 4s.
On the final stage, Thorburn extended his lead over Armstrong as Mccombie set about consolidating third. Two thirds of the way through the final test, Mccombie’s green Focus entered an
open right at the end of a straight. It was carrying too much speed, got two wheels on the loose gravel at the road edge, slid wide, dug in, and flipped over on to its roof and back on to its wheels. Co-driver Michael Coutts almost singlehandedly pushed it back on to the road just as marshals appeared to help.
Wink’s first podium on Scottish soil was secure. On recent form Michael Binnie might have threatened to do better but he finished half a minute down on Wink and blamed himself.
“I’ve been thinking ‘farming’ all week, not rallying,” said Binnie, who had spent long hours during the week on his winter barley harvest.
There was a surprise in store in fifth place. First time out in the ex-fred
Milne Mitsubishi Lancer E7, Scott Beattie scored a magnificent result just
managing to eclipse the rapid sixthplaced Thomas Gray, although Gray had punctured a tyre in the opening test.
Keith Morris was another to puncture in the second test but clinched seventh with his Mitsubishi ahead of Ian Baumgart’s Subaru. Alan Dickson was ninth in his Mitsubishi and Iain Wilson, first of the two-wheel-drive brigade, was 10th in his Ford Escort Mk2.
It has been a remarkable year for the Thorburn/beaton pairing, their second BTRDA title confirmed and now their third Scottish title. It was more relief than jubilation that was etched on Thorburn’s face at the finish: “It was a difficult position to be in this morning. Whether to go hard or sit back, but the stages were good. I still think my first Scottish title was the best, but this was equally as good.”