Donnie finishes best of city drivers at Granite
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EUAN Thorburn and his Inverness co-driver Paul Beaton held on to their lead in the ARR Craib MSA Scottish Rally Championship with victory at the Granite City Rally.
The duo, who triumphed at the Snowman Rally earlier in the season, completed the four Kincardineshire forest stages in a total time of 44 minutes 02 seconds, finishing 37 seconds clear of runner-up Jock Armstrong, who in turn came home just over a minute ahead of third-placed Mike Faulkner.
Defending champion David Bogie, a three-time Granite winner, was forced to retire his Ford Focus after the first stage with engine problems.
The Inverness crew of Donnie Macdonald and Andrew Falconer brought their Mitsubishi EVO back to the finish in fifth place overall — a timely morale boost after two back-to-back non-finishes.
"I’m absolutely delighted, the car was perfect," he said. "We got the pace up to where we wanted to be."
One of the biggest smiles of the day came from Andy Horne, co-driven by Jim Howie, who was debuting his newly acquired Ford Focus WRC.
"I was hoping to make it into the top ten, but I wasn’t certain we’d make it, to be honest", said Horne, of Inverness.
"The car is very capable and I need to learn to trust it. That will only come through time, but this has been a great start."
Conon Bridge driver John Morrison, with co-driver Peter Carstairs, finished 16th, while Inverness crew Dougal Brown and Lewis Rochford suffered a few ups and downs, but ended the event 17th overall.
Culloden’s Jimmy Christie, who had Ian Thorburn on notes, managed second place in class nine in there Ford Escort MK Two.
The fourth round of the ARR Craib MSA Scottish Rally Championship is the Jim Clark Reivers Rally on Sunday 1st June.
