Bogie cruelly denied Scottish podiumposted in BRC26 | 06 | 2016
SCOT DAVID BOGIE was cruelly denied a comfortable second place in the Dumfries-based Scottish Rally, the latest round of the British Rally Championship, within sight of the finish.
With eventual winner Elfyn Evans essentially out of sight, five-time Scottish champ Bogie, from Dumfries, entered the final stage with a relatively comfortable 9.1sec advantage over the third-placed Ford Fiesta R5 of Welshman Tom Cave.
Midway through the closing 10.64 mile stage at Mount Joe, Bogie’s Skoda Fabia R5 — boasting a new, bright oragne Cagemax livery — suffered a front-right puncture. After nursing the car to the end of the stage, the 2011 British champ held third place, having dropped 23.1s to Cave.
But worse was to follow for Bogie, who had played his BRC ‘joker’ — which doubled his championship points — on his home event, a rally he has won three times previously.
In completing the gravel stage, the flailing rubber from the tyre had caused irreversible damage to the Skoda’s radiator. Unable to complete the road section back to his home town for the ceremonial finish, he was forced to retire.
Related: David Bogie bids to win Scottish Rally
“It’s certainly not the way I wanted to finish the rally,” 28-year-old Bogie, co-driven by Hawick’s Kevin Rae and whose enforced retirement all but signalled the end of his championship hopes, admitted afterwards.
“We managed to get to the end of the stage, but the flailing rubber burst the radiator in the process, which meant we couldn’t get to the finish ceremony in Dumfries, and retired. It’s disappointing, but things like that happen in rallying.
“The guys who are at the top of the championship standings have all finished either first or second when they’ve played their joker: that’s 50 points instead of 25. I haven’t scored any today.
“We’ve only three rounds left in the championship, so I’ll be concentrating on winning rallies and scoring as many points as possible. Then we’ll see where we stand.”
If Bogie had been classified second, he'd have scored 30 points in Scotland and been third in the BRC standings on 48pts. Cave, who also played his ‘Joker’, would have finished behind in third, scoring 20 points to sit on 46pts.
While Duns driver Euan Thorburn finished fourth in his Peugeot 208 T16, Evans was the class of the field, posting fastest times in six of the seven stages, to eventually finish 52.4s ahead of Cave.
Former World Rally Championship driver Evans now leads the BRC by 20 points from Swede Fredrick Ahlin, who retired his Ford in the Scottish Rally with a broken driveshaft.
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Jim McGill