… McRae Rally Countdown ….
The penultimate round of the 2014 ARR Craib MSA Scottish Rally Championship will take to the forests of Perthshire in just over a week’s time. And with the entry list about to close, all the top contenders are raring to go.
At the moment Euan Thorburn (from Duns) leads the Championship by 31 points from five times champion David Bogie (Dumfries) ahead of Jock Armstrong (Castle Douglas) and Mike Faulkner (Aspatria) but all is not as it seems. Competitors in the 8 round national series count only their best six scores, and only Thorburn amongst the top four has scored on all six rounds so far this year.
In other words the Colin McRae Forest Stages Rally could provide a crucial turning point in this year’s title chase. Bogie retired from the Granite City Rally in April with an ignition pack failure, Armstrong failed to finish the opening Snowman Rally in February with transmission failure and Faulkner missed out on points on the Border Counties Rally when his car slid off the road and got stuck in a Kielder ditch.
In other words, it’s all to play for when the crews gather in Aberfeldy on Saturday 4th, Thorburn and Bogie will start as favourites with 3 wins apiece from six rounds, but neither can afford another non-finish, not with the likes of Faulkner and Armstrong desperate to close the gap.
It is therefore fitting that the Coltness Car Club organising team have come up with a suitable challenge for such a high speed bunch of battlers. Amongst the six timed-to-the-second forest Special Stages included in this year’s route are three of the UK’s top forest tests, the mountainous Errochty and the fast and furious Craigvinean plus the return, after nearly six years, of the notorious Drummond Hill stage, one of the highest forest stages in the country.
Indeed all three of those tests ranked among Colin McRae’s all-time favourites. The 1995 World Rally Champion was a member of Coltness Car Club, and was instrumental in the founding of this event which bears his name, and which first took to the stages 20 years ago this year.
Sporting Banter
On the Friday night before the rally, there will be a star guest ‘Rally Forum’ show at Rally HQ in the Breadalbane Community Campus in the centre of Aberfeldy from 8.00pm.
And for sports fans, motor sporting royalty doesn’t come much bigger than Dario Franchitti. The Scottish racing driver cut his teeth in Scottish and British Kart racing in the early days before signing up for the Paul Stewart Racing Team , then turned down a couple of chances to enter the glittering and glamorous world of F1 world in favour of the brash and feverish American motor racing scene. Over his 13 year American racing career he achieved more success in the US than any other British driver, and that included three wins at the Indianapolis 500. Dario was delighted to accept Coltness Car Club’s invitation to the event which bears the name of his friend.
Full details of the guest line-up will be revealed shortly.