Late puncture denies Bogie victoryposted in RSCOT25 | 06 | 2011
DAVID BOGIE'S MARCH march towards a recordbreaking third successive Scottish Rally Championship was temporarily halted when a late puncture cost him victory in the Dumfries-based RSAC Scottish Rally.
The 23-year-old, who has dominated the domestic rallying scene for the past 30 months, was on course for his fourth SRC victory of the year when he entered the final 13.6-mile test at Ae West with a comfortable 17.4-second lead.
Partnered by his Hawick co-driver Kevin Rae, the duo had won four of the opening five stages, missing out only by 0.5secs on the 0.7-mile spectator-special which was won by Highlander Andy Horne.
But just as they appeared set to take another win and a significant step towards clinching their third SRC title, their Mitsubishi Evo IX suffered a front puncture five miles from the end of the forest stage.
As they nursed the Mitsubishi to the end of the stage they were overtaken first by Jock Armstrong and then Mike Faulkner.
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"Yeh, I'm pretty gutted to miss out on winning my home rally," the Dumfries ace, who also leads the British Rally Championship, admitted after returning to town for the champagne celebrations.
"We'd paced ourselves right through the day and everything was going perfectly. But that's rallying. There's nothing you can do. Really, all you can do is get the car to the finish and hope you don't drop too much time.
"We know though again we had the pace to win the rally. Sometime you just get dealt a hand which you have to deal with. Sure it's disappointing, but we're in the fortunate position where — hopefully — it's not going to have too big a bearing on the outcome of the championship. But, believe be, we'll be taking nothing for granted before the end of the season."
Armstrong meanwhile, co-driven by Kirsty Riddick from Haugh of Urr, was delighted to have pinched the win in his Subaru Impreza; it was the pair's first win in the SRC since the Inverness-based Snowman Rally in 2010.
"It's that old adage," the Castle Douglas driver smiled. "To finish first, first you have to finish. To be honest, David was pretty well out of sight with just the last stage to go, but while it's disappointing for him to have the puncture, we're more than happy to take the win.
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"We just kept to our plan and maintained a good steady pace right through the day. We had a good ding-dong with Mike, but it's fantastic to be back on the top step of the podium."
Armstrong eventually finished 12.8secs ahead of the Mitsubishi Evo XI of Faulkner from Kirtlebridge, with Bogie a further 11.6s further back in third. The youngster though increased his lead in the championship further after his nearest challenger, Euan Thorburn from Duns, could only finish fourth, 27.8s ahead of Horne.
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Jim McGill