Faulkner wins Jim Clark Reiversposted in RSCOT31 | 05 | 2015
TWELVE MONTHS AFTER three people were tragically killed while spectating at the Jim Clark Rally, this year's streamlined event passed without incident and little fanfare.
Unlike the previous three-day extravaganza held on closed public roads across the Scottish Borders, the 2015 version was restricted to a one-day gravel event in Kielder Forest.
Running as the Jim Clark Reivers Rally, and based in Kelso, this was the first time for 15 years that the Jim Clark had been held on gravel rather than Tarmac.
The move ensured the continuity of a sporting event which can trace its roots back to 1970.
The decision to return to the forests was taken due to a combination of a gap year in the British Rally Championship, which will return in a new format in 2016, and the Jim Clark organising committee planning a new plan which will also appear next year.
"We have been concentrating our efforts on the 2016 event," Russell Blood, Clerk of the Course for next year's two-day Closed Road event, explained.
"Current plans are that this will comprise a two-day Jim Clark Rally (Friday/Saturday) followed by the one-day (Sunday) Jim Clark Reivers Rally.”
This new plan has already received the backing of many of the UK’s top rally championships.
Related: Three die in Jim Clark Rally
There is no official ‘MSA British Rally Championship’ this year as the Motor Sports Association, motor sport’s governing body, is in the throes of a major re-organisation of Britain’s top rally championship series and is planning to launch a completely new premier British rally championship competition in 2016.
Invernessian Iain Campbell, past Clerk of the Course for RallyScotland, and one of the UK's most respected rally organisers, has been charged with masterminding the format of the new British Championship. The two-day Jim Clark Rally will play an integral role in the 2016 series.
Both the national Scottish Rally Championship and Scottish Tarmack Rally Championship are supporting the 2016 Jim Clark Rally and Reivers organising teams, as is the British Asphalt Rally Championship plus local national and regional championship competitions.
Today's Jim Clark Reivers Rally, the fourth round of the ARR Craib Scottish Rally Championship, was won by Mike Faulkner. The Kirtlebridge driver brought is Mitsubishi Evo IX home six seconds ahead of the Ford Fiesta S2400 of Carlisle's Peter Taylor.
Five-time Scottish champ and current championship leader, David Bogie (pictured), retired at the end of the opening stage when his Ford Fiesta R5+ suffered oil pressure problems.
Related: Hannu Mikkola — Rallying will never be safe
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Jim McGill