Rally - Northern winners

The Granite City prizegiving was quite a glittering event last night in Aberdeen with catering, dining tables, flashing lights and big screens. Crikey it looked like the Oscars, but I managed to grab a word with the two duellists.

"We were 4 seconds down on David going into the last stage," said Dave Weston, "although we weren't certain. The times on SS7 were wrong for both of us, so neither of us were really sure of the position going into the final stage. We knew it was tight though. We pushed on fairly hard in that last one!"

He added: "This is new. I've never had anything like this before. It's never been this close. To finish dead level and have to use the tie decider."

When asked about the car and conditions he said: "All the stages were good today. Stage 3 was slippery, but I feel comfortable in the car now. Last year it was difficult with spins and stalls, but this year is much better."

David Bogie was equally effusive: "Win or lose, that was a really good event. Good stages and good competition. Just how close was that. Finish on a dead heat, the first stage was tied and then victory was decided on the second - by one second!"

He did have one additional thought though: "I remember when I was just starting out in rallying I was often told that you can't win a rally on a spectator stage, but you can lose a rally on it. I think I'll need to change that opinion now. I lost the rally today on the second stage, the show-stage round Aberdeen Exhibition Centre. Dave and I tied on the first run and he beat me by one second on the re-run. Had we tied on that it would have gone to the fourth stage, because we tied again on the third, and that was the difference between winning and losing today."

Note: Full rally report in Wednesday's 'Motorsport News'.