Rally - Thorburn leads

Oddly enough I got a usable signal at the test day yesterday in Glentrool,but no such luck today, hence the rather late progress report.

Jock Armstrong was the first of the top seeds to strike trouble sliding off the road on a  very slittery, guttery second stage. Kirsty was spotted with the OK board after it, so that's the good news.

Going into the final stage, the leaders were 12 seconds apart, but both Bogie and Thorburn 'cleaned' Stage3 (by over 20 secs each) with Bogie a second over the Bogey in SS4 and Thorburn 2 secs under. Prior to the rally start, the word was that SS4 was 'cleanable' but no mention of SS3. Both went needlessly hell for leather in SS3 and then backed off too much in SS4.

With David Bogie spinning on the first stage, Euan Thorburn has the advantage, 12 seconds to the good with a 13 miler left to go.

"It was just so slippery in the first stage," said David, "but when I spun, I couldn't get reverse so I had to switch everything off to re-set the car, and that cost me 20 seconds."

Thorburn was trying too: "I was nearly off at a right hander in Stage 2, I just went too quickly into a tight right and caught the grass on the left," said Euan.

Mike Faulkner will struggle too. The Lancer struck a rock on the final bend of SS4, broke a bottom arm and steering link and pushed the wheel back into the well. He only just made service by the skin of his teeth. If you see a rainbow over Glencaird service, that will be the sweat from the Faulkner camp.

So the leaderboard shows:
Thorburn, 28m 54s
Bogie, 29m 06s
Milne, 29m 51s
Weston, 30m 07s
Collie, 30m 10s
Faulkner, 30m 13s
MacDonald30m 46s
Groundwater, 30m 55s
Inglis, 31m 05s
Gallacher, 31m 36s