Perthshire rallying round

RallyScotland bared its teeth in the forest stage through Glen Errochty, high above Loch Tummel in Perthshire, wrecking the event for early leader Guy Wilks and Lanark’s Alister McRae. But, within minutes of hurtling their respective Peugeot and Proton S2000 cars through the slippery, cloying mud, the pair were parked outside Marks & Spencer in Perth town centre.

The Fair City’s Saturday afternoon shoppers found their weekly routine uncompromisingly disrupted as the rally’s “regrouping area”, immediately before they headed to the centralised service area at Perth Airport, occupied the M&S “shop&collect” car park.

“This is a piece of nonsense,” one irate, tweed-clothed county resident moaned as they sat in their hefty 4x4. “Just what do they think they’re doing?” Actually, and amusingly, what these finely-tuned athletes, who normally survive on a clinically-measured, calorie-controlled diet, were doing was nipping into “Markies” for sticky buns and coffee.

Norwegian Andreas Mikkelsen, second in last year’s RallyScotland, grabbed a healthy 50.7-second lead after yesterday’s six-stage leg of the penultimate round of the Intercontinental Rally Championship. His path was eased after 2009 winner Wilks, from Darlington, lost six minutes with a mistake on SS5 at Errochty.

The overnight leader entered the 10.9-mile stage trailing Mikkelsen’s Skoda UK Motorsport Fabia S2000 by just 3.4secs, but the Englishman’s rally was wrecked five miles into the test. “I was convinced we had a rear puncture and I didn’t want to lose time any more time, so I was pushing like hell, and I pushed too hard,” Wilks explained.

“I was just too stubborn. I was pushing hard to close the gap to Andreas, and instead I should have been more patient and level-headed.We came round a left-hand bendand hooked the front left tyre into the ditch, but we lost it coming out and we spun 360-degrees and ended up beached in the ditch, facing skywards with the Peugeot’s front wheels off the ground. In the end we were pushed out by five or six big burly Swedes, who appeared from nowhere but, by that time, we’d lost more than six minutes and essentially we were out of it.”

While Wilks nursed his car back to the service halt at Perth Airfield, having dropped from second to 23rd, 6mins 24.8secs behind Mikkelsen, there was worse news for McRae

The 40-year-old Scot ground to a halt on the same stage as Wilks hit problems but the damage to his Proton proved terminal. “We just lost all oil pressure,” the former British champion explained afterwards. “We stopped on the stage as soon as we could, but our rally is over.”

When the car had been returned to service, McRae was able to shed more light on the incident. “The guys have identified a hole in the sump which they believe was caused by a a rock,” he explained. “Errochty claimed me 12 months ago, and it’s done the same again this year.”

Mikkelsen, fastest through three of the day’s opening four stages — Drummond Hill and Errochty I and II — now leads the Peugeot of Frenchman Bryan Bouffier overnight, with defending IRC champ and 2010 RallyScotland winner Juho Hanninen’s Skoda third, one second further back.

The leaders are three of the five drivers who retain hopes of winning the championship, with only the final round in Cyprus next month.

While Skoda’s Jan Kopecky leads Belgian Freddy Loix by 25 points, there are 37pts available for the winner at Scone Palace today. With Hanninen five points adrift, Mikkelsen knows a first victory is imperative for his title hopes.

Dumfries 24-year-old David Bogie meanwhile continued his fightback in the Group N class. Having dropped 30secs with intercom problems through the opening two night tests on Friday, the Scot climbed from 14th to tenth yesterday.