Border Counties Rally

After missing the 2013 edition of the Border Counties it was a pleasure to be back in Kielder again, albeit not as a snowy as last year. It was all about the 3 Ford Focus WRC crews as they filled the podium at the end of the event. David Bogie & Kevin Rae were dominant and went fastest over the opening 4 stages to open up a comfortable margin to ensure victory. Euan Thorburn & Paul Beaton had started out better than Stephen Petch & Michael Wilkinson in their newer Focus WRC but by stage 4 they had sneaked ahead by a single second. Petch then went fastest through the final test to secure 2nd place behind Bogie with Thorburn rounding out the top 3, 4 seconds back.

Tour of Epynt

Once the cloud burnt off the weather was glorious up on Epynt and a fierce battle between the top 3 ensued. Damian Cole & Elliot Edmondson (Focus) set a blistering pace through the first stage to lead by 7 seconds but after that Peter Lloyd & Neil James (Impreza WRC) started the fight back on stage 2. Initially in 3rd after stage 1 Stephen Simpson & Patrick Walsh (Impreza) were on a charge and fastest time on stage 3 saw them leap ahead of Lloyd. With stage 4 cancelled stage 5 was the first long stage of the event and Simpson went fastest to close to just a second of Cole, who was also beaten by Lloyd. Stage 6 saw Simpson take the lead by a single second but it was Lloyd who went fastest to be joint 2nd. Cole went fastest on the final stage to book end the rally and take victory by 1 second from Lloyd with Simpson slipping back to 3rd overall.

Malcolm Wilson Rally

Back to the Lakes for what turned out to be a historic day which saw Paul Bird, co-driven by Aled Davies (Focus WRC), take his 4th win on this event and equal the all time record of wins set by Bill Dobie. He set out in determined form and went fastest through the first 4 stages. David Bogie & Kevin Rae (Focus WRC) were just under 20 seconds back at first service but a puncture on stage 5 saw them drop back before a rear differential problem saw them slip back further to 4th overall. Instead it was fellow Scots Euan Thorburn and Paul Beaton (Focus WRC) who took the fight to Bird. They had been suffering through the first half of the rally with their own mechanical gremlins but once they were fixed at service Thorburn went fastest on all of the final 4 stages, closing in from 38 to 15 seconds behind Bird by the end of the event.

Mid Wales Stages