Andrew Gallacher took his maiden rally victory on the opening round of the 2018 ARR Craib MSA Scottish Rally Championship when he won the Arnold Clark Snowman Rally in Inverness on Saturday
Gallacher, along with co-driver Jane Nicol held on to the lead of the unpredictable Inverness-based event from the second stage, to win by a slender six second margin in their Ford Focus WRC.
Aberdeen’s Quintin Milne and Sean Donnelly went on an almighty charge over the closing stages to close the gap in their Subaru Impreza WRC, with Donnie MacDonald and Andrew Falconer completing the podium in their Ford Fiesta R5.
Milne put in a superb drive through the final six mile test to whittle down Gallacher’s advantage, but it wouldn’t be enough to deny him his maiden SRC win and the chance to create history, replicating his father Drew’s victories of 1977 and 1979.
Gallacher said: “They were very trying conditions. We had a relatively clean run through the whole day but there were still a few moments in there.
“We put new tyres on for the last stage and thought we would just take our time, but I’ll be honest we were starting to worry we might be caught.
“We knew we had to wait on all the results coming through before we knew (we’d won).”
Milne gave it his all to try and win his first SRC event since the 2013 Border Counties, but fell short, recovering from a slow start that saw him 13th after the opening stage. MacDonald and Falconer were early leaders but fell backwards in the third test, overhauling Steven Clark and Paul Gribben’s Mitsubishi Evo V into the final podium place.
Greg McKnight and Harry Marchbank powered their Ford Escort Mk2 into the top 10 with a fine eighth place in extremely challenging conditions for a two-wheel-drive car.
McKnight and Marchbank’s fine performance saw them open up an early lead in the Scottish 2WD Championship. They too will receive a discounted entry into round two.
Paul McErlean and Niall McKenna made a welcome return to the SRC with second place in the category, ahead of Paddy Munro and Seamus MacLean.
Finlay Retson brought his Ford Fiesta R2 home 21st overall to top the Junior podium by a comfortable margin. Niall Cowan, jun, took second in his MG ZR, just 11 seconds ahead of Scott Burness’ Ford Fiesta.
The www.usedcarparts.co.uk Subaru Cup went the way of Brett MacKenzie and Lauren Murray, but only by eight seconds from Ross McFadzean and Laura Marshall. Donald Brooker and Rachel Booth grabbed third.