Scotland’s brightest young rally prospect, David Bogie, bagged his second British Rally Championship podium finish of the season when he battled to third at the end of the all-tarmac Ulster Rally.
The 22-year-old from Dumfries, who won the last round of the Hankook Scottish Rally Championship in Elgin a fortnight ago to take the lead in the title race, was delighted to return to the podium.
“After we finished third in the Pirelli Rally in Carlisle at the start of the season, the next two rounds didn’t go so well,” Bogie, co-driven by Hawick’s Kevin Rae, said today after returning to rally HQ in Antrim.
“It’s a great boost to my confidence to get back on the podium. We worked hard on a couple of aspects of my driving and now we can build for the remainder of the season.”
Bogie, driving his all-new Mitsubishi EvoX, finished two places ahead of the Subaru Impreza of Aberdeen 18-year-old Dave Weston jnr.
Manxman Mark Higgins — who won the Jim Clark International Rally earlier this season in his Subaru Impreza — took maximum points to edge into the lead in the race for the BRC title.
Higgins was comfortably the quickest BRC runner finishing almost three minutes ahead of the Mitsubishi of Ireland’s Alastair Fisher in second place.
The event overall was won by Irish tarmac specialist Eugene Donnelly in his Skoda Fabia World Rally Car, finishing just 14.1-seconds ahead of Gareth MacHale’s Ford Focus WRC at the end of the 127-mile rally.
Higgins was fourth overall, 4min 52.4secs behind Donnelly, but the first BRC-registered driver. Bogie was 11th overall with Weston 14th.
JM