Borderer Euan Thorburn increased his lead in the ARR Craib MSA Scottish rally championship with his second win of the season on Saturday’s third round in Aberdeen.
The Duns-based competitor, driving a Ford Focus WRC, completed the four Kincardineshire forest stages on the McCombie Builders Granite City Rally in a total time of 44 minutes 02 seconds.
Runner-up Jock Armstrong was a further 37sec back in his Subaru Impreza. The Castle Douglas driver finished just over a minute ahead of third-placed Mike Faulkner in a Mitsubishi EVO.
Defending champion David Bogie, a three-time Granite winner, was forced to retire his Ford Focus after the first stage with engine problems.
Thorburn, who won the season-opener in Inverness, is delighted to have opened his season with two victories from the first three races.
He said: “We’ve never started that well in the Scottish championship, so to have built up a wee cushion after three rounds is a new experience.”
Once he had negotiated the tricky opening stage, Armstrong, with Paula Swinscoe on the notes, got into his stride, and was second quickest to Thorburn through the remaining three tests – indeed there was only a second between the two on the six-and-a-half miles of SS3 Drumochty.
Armstrong said: “I was very happy with the times across the day but the final stage was again quite difficult – you were in and out of the fog. I’m happy to finish second – it’s points on the board.”
For his part, Faulkner, alongside navigator Peter Foy, was fortunate to finish, after problems with the diff pump on the EVO meant he had to drive the last two stages with rear-wheel drive only. He said: “The final stage was a bit faster and more open than the previous ones, so we could carry the speed, otherwise I doubt whether we’d have made it to the end.”
Banchory’s Quintin Milne, with Martin Forrest, of Aberdeen, navigating, was a further seven seconds behind in fourth overall in his EVO. It was Milne’s 13th successive finish in the championship, and moved him back to second in the drivers’ championship – eight points adrift of Thorburn.
Milne said: “It’s been a good day for us, but the car didn’t feel quite right. Jock (Armstrong) is going to give me a hand to get the suspension set up right because I’m losing the odd second here and there compared to last year.
“The car is great over the big jumps, but I seem to have lost the feel – it used to be like a go-kart, really precise”.
The Inverness crew of Donnie Macdonald and Andrew Falconer brought their Mitsubishi EVO back to the finish in fifth place overall – a great morale boost for the pair after two back-to-back non-finishes.
The fourth round of the Scottish rally championship is the Jim Clark Reivers Rally on Sunday, June 1.