Rally - Evans wins

Elfyn Evans won the RSAC Scottish Rally at Dumfries by almost a minute from Tom Cave with David Bogie losing out on the runner-up spot after a puncture on the final stage. It had been a tough day in the forests of Ae and the rally was over an hour later when the first cars started arriving back in Dumfries.

Euan Thorburn was a relieved fifth, much happier with his fault-free run in the Peugeot, and Garry Pearson scored the top points in the ARR Craib Scottish Championship with 9^th place, but he was lucky. “We had a big impact in Stage 6,” said, Garry, “That caused the power steering pump to cut, but we have a re-set switch just for these occasions. I stabbed at the switch and nothing happened so we had to drive for 3 miles with no power steering so that cost us a couple of places.”

Jock Armstrong was 10^th having completed the last two stages with half a sumpguard: “If they had run that penultimate stage, it could have made a difference,” mused Jock, “but fair play to Garry he drove very well today.”

Also going well was Mike Faulkner in 11^th place who finished 0.9 of a second behind Jock. How close was that? “What do I have to do to beat these two,” said Mike, “I had a big spin at the wooden bridge in Ae today and then on the last two stages, the Speyside misfire came back. It was OK on downhill sections but missed badly on the uphills.”

Mark McCulloch finished 13^th after putting new tyres on for the last two stages, then when he came out of the penultimate one: “I had to put three old tyres back on because of cuts and nicks on the new ones in that last stage! But at least I beat Rory,” he added.

Rory Young was 14^th, Bruce McCombie 15^th and Greg McKnight scored an exceptional 16^th overall first time out in 4WD.

Donnie MacDonald made up some time in the afternoon: “The brakes were fine again after Stage 4 but I’ll need to get to the bottom of these brake troubles before the next event, I can’t have that again, losing 2 minutes - I can lose 2 minutes on my own without any help from mechanical issues!”

(Note: David Bogie’s Skoda burst its radiator on the last road section and didn’t quite make the final re-group but hopefully his position will stand)

(Note: Stage 7 was cancelled due to road conditions at the stage Finish)

Provisonal Leaderboard after 8 (of 8) stages:

1, E Evans, 51m 02.4

2, T Cave, 51m 54.8

3, D Bogie, 51m 57.8

4, D Henry, 53m 16.8

5, E Thorburn, 53m 35.5

6, J Greer, 53m 45.0

7, J Moffett, 53m 58.4

8, J Anderson, 54m 01.2

9, G Pearson, 54m 07.4

10, J Armstrong, 54m 20.3