Bogie moves closer to British crownposted in RSCOT01 | 05 | 2011

    SCOTS RALLY ACE David Bogie extended his lead in the Dulux Trade MSA British Rally Championship when he notched his second victory of the season by winning the Pirelli International Rally.

    The Dumfries 25-year-old — on course to win his third successive Scottish Championship, as well as his first British crown — delivered a faultless drive through the 93 miles on Kielder Forest’s demanding gavel roads and led the event from start-to-finish.

    "Today went pretty much perfectly," Bogie, co-driven by Hawick's Kevin Rae, said after returning to rally HQ in Carlisle, "though we had a bit of a scare on the final stage on one opening leg on Friday evening when our brakes had faded to almost nothing.

    "We're in a good position now in the championship, and we head to the Jim Clark next, which is a rally I really enjoy. But I'm taking absolutely nothing for granted. There's still a lot of work to be done."

    Bogie — fourth in last year's RallyScotland — finished the final, dusty and dry stage more than a minute ahead of his closest rival, Ireland’s Robert Barrable in a Skoda Fabia S2000.

    Starting and finishing at Carlisle Racecourse, the rally kicked off with two seven-mile runs through Newcastleton Forest on Friday evening, punctuated by an autograph signing event in Newcastleton village centre. Following the overnight halt, a further 79 competitive miles, split into 11 stages, were tackled on Saturday, all of them taking place over the dry and dusty gravel roads in Kielder Forest.

    Round one-winner Bogie was fastest through both of Friday’s stages, which enabled him to return to Carlisle for the overnight halt 9.3 seconds ahead of Elfyn Evans, who was 11.6 seconds ahead of Robert Barrable, the Irishman now getting used to his Skoda S2000.

    Saturday morning comprised two stages, followed by a remote service halt at a car park overlooking Kielder Water, before the same two stages were contested again. It soon became clear that Bogie was in control and he retuned to the day’s main service at Carlisle Racecourse with a 32-second lead.

    His cause was made easier after second-placed Evans suffered a puncture in SS6 and lost well over a minute and dropped back to fifth as he drove the rest of the stage with a flat tyre, damaging his car’s brakes and suspension in the process. This left the Skoda S2000s of Barrable and Greer to battle it out for third place.

    Bogie consolidated his lead over the day’s remaining six stages by setting the fastest time on all of them. The rest of Barrable’s rally also went well, but for Greer, the final step of the podium was suddenly in doubt when his car started to handle very strangely on stage nine, the back end of his Skoda feeling very loose.

    With nothing visibly wrong he continued with caution, until the final stage when the car suddenly turned left and into a ditch. Fortunately he managed to get going again and stay ahead of Evans, who was now in fourth place after Jason Pritchard had a two-minute confrontation with another Kielder ditch.

    Bogie’s second victory of the season sees him increase his lead in the Dulux Trade British Rally Championship to 58 points ahead of Evans on 51 in second and Greer third with 44.

    The next round of the British Rally Championship is the Kelso-based Jim Clark International on May 27/28.

    CLICK HERE to see HD video footage from the Pirelli International

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    Jim McGill

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