by Robin Ellison
Young Flying Scotsman David Bogie set a blistering pace to win a highly anticipated Pirelli Rally and his 2nd victory of the 2011 BRC Season.
If you’d had enough of the Royal Wedding, Newcastletown Forest was your alternative option with 2 identical stages, a holding control in a town of the same name and tons of dust in the air on Friday evening. As Mark Donnelly left the start line of SS1, he knew he was the only one with a clear view ahead of him but even though he had the advantage he couldn’t match Irishman Martin McCormack’s Citroen DS3 R3, who had returned to the BRC on the recent Bulldog Rally, and took the lead into SS2 despite the dust making visibility difficult. Not long after the 2WD’s, the 4WD cars were raring to fly through Newcastletown 1 & 2. Elfyn Evans’ Subaru Impreza N16 left with the clear view ahead of David Bogie. Both youngsters had wins under their belt this season and were looking to make it two but after SS1 David Bogie was out on top with a slender lead of 2seconds over Evans. SS2 Saw Mark Donnelly slip a little further behind the charging Martin McCormack who would be 0.4 secs better off over night. David Bogie would also go to sleep happy with a 9.3 second advantage over Elfyn Evans after SS2.
Saturday’s action would be led by the DS3 of Martin McCormack ahead of Donnelly and Breen but all of a sudden, out of nowhere popped up Jukka Korhonen who was in a Fiesta R2 on a one-off event, took the lead into SS8 Shepardshield 1. Mark Donnelly got there to find out he had received a 100sec penalty for being late out of TC2B which saw him go down to 3rd. It had been nip & tuck all day until the last 2 stages which were repeats of Pundershaw & Chirdonhead which saw McCormack suddenly found pace and took the honours for 2WD ahead of 2nd place debutant Korhonen and 3rd placed Craig Breen. After the battle for the 2WD had finished, eyes turned to the 4WD and the battle which included David Bogie, Elfyn Evans, Robert Barrable, Jonny Greer & Jason Pritchard but no Adam Gould or Tom Cave due to retirements. Bogie set-out intent on his 2nd win of the BRC season but the 2 Skoda’s of Barrable & Greer had leapfrogged Evans to take 2nd & 3rd but Evans had now been caught up in the now 2-way battle for 4th between himself and Jason Pritchard. Unfortunately, Pritchard would then be out of the battle with a roll on Junction 3 of Shepardshield 1 and Evans seemed to have secured 4th, and was the position he would finally take. David Bogie had a sensible drive to take win No. 2 by 1min over young Skoda driver Robert Barrable who got a career best 2nd place ahead of team-mate Jonny Greer.
In other events, the Historic honours went to, Graham Waite in Category 1, Stefan Stouf for Category 2 and Nick Elliott took Category 3 and the overall honours
Whilst Simon Moore & Emma Morrison took the BRC Challenge win in their Renault Clio by 37.4 seconds over Jack Rowe & Alex Lee
Article and Photo By Robin Ellison