Rally - Thorburn leads

Bit of a shake up after those two slightly less muddy tests with Euan Thorburn now leading the rally with two stages to go.

David Bogie appeared at the end of Rogie with a smoking tattered front tyre and broken wheel rim: "We didn't hit anything, but the tyre went down, that's rallying." When asked why he didn't stop and change: "We would have lost even more time, but when  the tyre started to burn and smoke badly near the end of the stage we nearly had to."

Euan wasn't looking too happy though, even though he's leading: "We're changing the suspension settings after that stage for the final two. It's not right, it keeps moving about at the back end."

Quintin Milne posted a stonking time in the third test to move up to third place but Jock Armstrong is out. Something is broken in the transmission, either a diff or a driveshaft.

That means Bogie is fourth but Dougal Brown is still hanging on to his best result yet with fifth place: "We were a wee bit lucky. We had an overshoot at the bridge in Rogie, but we're still ahead of Barry (Groundwater)".

Steven Ronaldson has put his Metro into the top ten but is worried about a noise from the rear end and the boys are investgating. Sandy Arbuthnott retired his Metro at first service. The quill shaft taking drive from the gearbox to the rear weels stripped leaving him with front wheel drive only.

And would you believe it, the sun is shining on northern Scotland. It's nearly warm!

Leaderboard after SS3 (of 5):
1, E Thorburn, 26m 56s
2, M Faulkner, 27m 22s
3, Q Milne, 27m 29s
4, D Bogie, 28m 12s
5, D Brown, 28m 32s
6, B Groundwater, 28m 43s
7, R Young, 28m 44s
8, A Gallacher, 28m 51s
9, S Ronaldson, 28m 53s
10, D MacDonald, 29m 00s.