The final showdown in the 2011 MSA Scottish Rally Championship will be played out in the Perthshire forests this weekend. The Colin McRae Forest Stages will start and finish in Aberfeldy on Saturday, October 1st.
Two points separate Mike Faulkner and Euan Thorburn as they battle it out for the runners-up spot in the championship, which has already been won by David Bogie.
Faulkner and co-driver Peter Foy were victorious on the penultimate round, the Merrick Stages, while Thorburn fought his way back up the leaderboard to finish fourth, after losing time on the opening stage with turbo-pipe problems. It followed a titanic struggle on the previous Speyside round when both drivers recorded equal times on four of the stages.
Faulkner is under no illusion that the challenge will be just as tough this weekend at the wheel of his Mitsubishi Evo 6: “I’m really looking forward to the final battle with Euan. It has been close all year, so I don’t see it being any different on the final round”, said Faulkner: “We’re not thinking about the championship permutations – we just want to carry on the momentum from the Merrick and hopefully finish the season on a high with another win. The McRae stages are always a challenge as they very slippery when they are wet, so we will have to balance between attacking and staying on the road”.
Duns-based Thorburn, with Paul Beaton of Inverness on the notes, is also putting thoughts of the championship to one side and has his sights firmly on securing his first victory in a 2011 campaign in which he has been runner-up three times at the wheel of his Mitsubishi Evo 9. Both are likely to come under pressure from Robbie Head, also in an Evo 9, who sits third in the drivers’ points, eleven points shy of Thorburn. The Lanarkshire ace was second on the Merrick, his highest finish since returning to regular competition at the start of the season. Head, who will be without regular co-driver Claire Mole, has drafted in one of Northern Ireland’s top navigators, Gordon Noble, for the Perthshire challenge.
Shaun Sinclair and Chris Hamill return to the fray in an Evo9 for only their third outing on an SRC round this year. The Oban crew will be looking to repeat the form which took them to a top six finish on the McRae Stages two years ago.
Sixth seeds Donnie Macdonald and Keir Beaton from Inverness will want to finish their championship campaign with a flourish, following their only retirement of the season thus far on the Merrick, when their Evo 9 slid off into a ditch on the penultimate stage.
The Aberdeenshire crew of Chris Collie and Lisa Watson will also be in the hunt for a good points haul in their Subaru Impreza, after recording their best championship result – sixth overall – in Galloway.
Meanwhile, John McLory, co-driven by David Hood, sits three points adrift of Macdonald in the overall drivers’ standings in his Subaru Impreza N15 but has a single point advantage over the Inverness driver in Class 10.
In the DMACK Group N championship, Kilmarnock’s Andrew Gallacher (Subaru Impreza) has a four point lead over David Newall in a Mitsubishi Evo 8: the former having finished fifth overall on the Merrick alongside navigator Phil Sandham.
No fewer than seven Ford Escorts lead the 2-wheel drive entries, which will run at the front of the field.
They are led by the historic Mk2 of Steve Bannister, with Louise Sutherland on the notes. However, they will face strong competition for overall “Escort” honours from, among others, Ludlow-based Joe Price and SRC regulars Malcolm Buchanan, Quintin Milne and Michael Horne.
Milne, co-driven by Martin Forrest, has scored maximum Class 8 points on the last two rounds, and sits six points behind another quick Escort man, Liam Harkness from Thornhill.
Twenty-three-year-old Harkness, co-driven by Kenneth Marchbank, also has his eye on the SRC Junior Championship, where he trails Gareth White by three points, with both drivers also in contention for the Red Bull Junior Challenge.
White, with fellow Borderer Mike Dickson on the notes, will be at the wheel of the Citreon C2R2 which has taken him to the top of the fiercely competitive Class 4 1600 category. The 23-year-old mechanic from St Boswells has a seven point cushion over Thornhill’s Jim Robertson, also in a Citreon, and Graeme Schoneville in a Honda Civic who are both tied for second.
Schoneville, who took maximum class points on the Merrick, and fellow Lanarkshire competitor Graeme Smith, will slug it out for top “Civic” honours, while Paisley’s Alisdair Graham (Vauxhall Corsa) will want to finish the season on a high after two previous non-finishes. Malcolm Robertson and Katie Stimpson are another crew to look out for in their Talbot Sunbeam.
Tom and Sue Hynd have wrapped up Class 3 in their Peugeot 205GTi but second place is still up for grabs, with Merrick-winners Iain Haining/Mairi Riddick (Vauxhall Nova) defending a one point advantage over Ayr crew Blair and Alex McCulloch, also in a Nova.
As the cars line up for the start in Aberfeldy on Saturday morning, competitors, officials and spectators alike will remember former Scottish champion Jimmy Girvan who lost his life on last year’s event.
The first 2-wheel drive car will leave at 08h30, with the leading cars returning from 14h38 approximately.
Full details can be found at www.coltnesscarclub.com. For SRC news and updates, go to www.scottishrallychampionship.co.uk.