Rallying: Bogie throws down gauntlet to challengers

Defending champion David Bogie had an emphatic win on Saturday’s Coltel Granite City Rally – his third victory on the Aberdeen-based event in the past four years.

The Dumfries driver led from start to finish in his ex-Colin McRae Ford Focus WRC to complete the five stages in a total time of 42 mins 25 secs, nearly one and a half minutes ahead of runner-up Chris Collie from Aberdeen in a Mitsubishi EVO 6.

Third-placed Mike Faulkner was just a further second adrift in his EVO 9.

Bogie now leads the ARR Craib MSA Scottish Rally Championship by one point from Banchory’s Quintin Milne, who finished fourth in his EVO 9.

An early casualty was Duns’ Euan Thorburn – one of Bogie’s main rivals – who hit a rock on the first stage which flattened the exhaust of his Focus WRC.

Bogie said: “I felt comfortable coming out of the first stage and knew then that the rest would all come together. Obviously, losing Euan early on took a wee bit of pressure off us, but in all honesty I felt I drove well today.”