Bogie Takes Top Honours on the Reivers Return
After 2 rounds in the forests, the KNC Groundworks Scottish Rally Championship moved on to the tarmac with the return of the Jim Clark Reivers Rally, based in Duns in the Scottish Borders.
5 times champion David Bogie would take his 2nd SRC win of the year on his 1st event with the MINI on tarmac. Re-united with John Rowan, it wasn’t a perfectly smooth day for the WRC crew, the fueling issues that have plagued the car all year continuing to frustrate the McGeechan mechanics, plus the paddle shift was intermittently giving bother. A bent wheel and one of the windows spontaneously parting company mid stage made it an interesting day all round, but David did enough to take 2nd place overall behind local man and 3 times SRC Champions Euan Thorburn & co-driver Paul Beaton’s Focus WRC to the top of the championship standings.
Absolutely flying on their home event, Michael Binnie & Claire Mole were fully up to speed having competed in the National Rally on the Friday & Saturday. Getting the absolute maximum out of the Evo 9 once again they took 2nd in the SRC, 4th overall and less than 2 seconds off an overall podium place continuing their excellent form in 2022. Michael now lies 2nd in the drivers points and Claire maintains her lead in the co-driver points.
3rd in the SRC, Mark McCulloch & Michael Hendry continued to develop the Satria Evo with its 1st tarmac event. Cautious in the morning as they figured out what the car was going to do they turned up the wick in the afternoon and were very happy with the results. The car caused quite a stir amongst the spectators with Mark’s dad Johnny fielding a lot of questions at service about what the heck the car actually is.
Greg McKnight & Harry Marchbank would take the top 2wd spot in the absolutely rapid and glorious sounding Mk2 Escort ahead of the 208 R4 of Peter Stewart & Dave Robson.
Peter was a bit annoyed that he drove better on the National event when points weren’t on the line than he did on the Reivers when they were, but with Greg not registered for the SRC he nevertheless took maximum Autoshop.co.uk 2 wheel drive points along with regular co-driver Marchbank.
Angus Lawrie & Paul Gribben would take the Albyn Garage Challengers win on the Evo’s tarmac debut. Still learning his new toy Angus was slowly tweaking the setup and his driving style throughout the day. There’s still plenty to come from this combination in the future.
The Haddo Energy Super Seniors ranks were swollen on this event by the arrival of Escort legend Steve Bannister. With local man Callum Atkinson alongside Steve was showing he’s still got it, taking the Super Seniors win ahead of Speyside winner Gordon Murray.
Mike Moates & Gary McDonald would take their 1st 5 Star Vehicle Deliveries Subaru Cup win of the year. It wasn’t straight forward though, the standard brakes cooking themselves on every stage in the morning. That dropped them quite far back so they spent the afternoon just having fun with the handbrake at junctions, entertaining the fans while keeping it on the road.
Robert Proudlock backed up his Speyside result with another maximum haul in the Moates Offshore Juniors category. His task was made easier with the early retirement of Justin Gunning & Keir Beaton but he had to keep an eye out for Meghan O’Kane, the Fiesta pilot producing her best drive so far to take 2nd in the juniors.
Making it 2 ladies wins in a row, Aileen Forrest’s progression continued. After her best gravel performance last time out she backed it up with her best tarmac performance so far in the Evo 9. Meghan O’Kane would grab 2nd just ahead of Nikki Addison & Rachel Matheson’s 106. Ashleigh Morris would wrap up the finishers, the R200 driver delayed with a time-consuming tyre change on the last loop.
The SRC circus stays on the black stuff for round 4, the Dunoon Presents Argyll Rally on 24th & 25th June.
Images courtesy of Gary Fothergill (GF Rally Images).
