Scots youngster David Bogie will take the softly-softly approach to tomorrow’s final round of the Hankook Scottish Rally Championship, the Perth-based McRae Forest Stages, to ensure he becomes the youngest champion since Colin McRae.
The 22-year-old from Dumfries will start the 45-mile test knowing he needs only to finish sixth in his Mitsubishi Evo IX to be crowned champion in only his second full season in the championship. McRae was 20 when he lifted the title in 1988.
“I know exactly what I have to do,” Bogie, partnered by Hawick co-driver Kevin Rae and who won the McRae Stages in 2007, said today, “but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be any the easier.
“I know I don’t need to win the event, but that creates a different sort of pressure. Every rally driver is geared to tackling a rally flat-out and the minute you back off, that’s when accidents and mistakes happen.
“I know I’m going to have to concentrate harder than I’ve ever done before. I let the championship slip through my fingers last year when I crashed in the penultimate round, but I’ve learned from that mistake and I’m ready to become champion.”
Should Bogie slip up, Duns-based Borderer Euan Thorburn is waiting to capitalise in his Subaru having already clinched the Group N title.
Irishman Kris Meeke, the Colin McRae protégée and the newly-crowned champ in the International Rally Championship — which concludes with the inaugural Rally Scotland in November — will drive his Peugeot 207 Super 2000 as the course car.
JM