Scots rally ace eyes British titleposted in SRC17 | 02 | 2011

DOUBLE SCOTTISH Rally champ David Bogie heads into this weekend's opening event, the Inverness-based Snowman Rally, not only eager to start the defence of his title, but also with one eye on next weekend's opening round of the British Championship, the Bournemouth-based Rallye Sunseeker.

"We're going to do the first round of each series, and we'll make an assessment

of how we progress for the rest of the season after that," the 23-year-old from Dumfries, who will again drive his Mitsubishi Evo IX with co-driver Kevin Rae from Hawick, explained.

"I'd like a clean run on the Snowman, and get some points in the bag. I've done it twice before, and it's a fantastic event. However, we missed it last year, and that rather put us on the back foot.

"Obviously it would be nice to win a third Scottish title — it's only been done once before. But at the same time, I've done BRC events a few times now, and I've never had a good clean run at them. So, if I could have strong finishes on a couple of British rounds, it would certainly encourage us to carry on in that direction. When it comes to it, we'll have to pick one championship, we can't afford to do both.

"The car has been fully repaired by Pro-Tec Motorsport over the winter months. The engine has been rebuilt, the transmission has been rebuilt, and it's just generally been tightened up. It looks really good."

Bogie got rid of the post-winter rustiness by testing at Sweet Lamb in Wales earlier this week. It was his first run in the car since last October's IRC Rally Scotland,

when he and Rae finished fourth overall.

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Jim McGill