A lot of cars made set up changes during the first service, and amongst them was Phillip Morrow with a new windscreen and some panel beating at the top of his priority list after that opening stage roll. It paid off though as Phillip was third fastest through stage 3, behind his team-mate Wilks, and Higgins. Heading into Stage 4, Eyemouth, Wilks held a 6 second lead over his championship rival. But then it all changed. The stage was stopped and the fire brigade was summoned. The propshaft on Guy's works Mitsubishi Evo 9 had sheared soon after the start of the stage and eventually ruptured the fuel tank. By the time Guy and co-driver Phil Pugh felt the heat inside the car it was pretty much too late and although both escaped unscathed the car was totally destroyed - their rally quite literally going up in smoke.
This left Mark Higgins, the three-time British Rally champion, out in front with a 55 second lead over his brother, and young Darren Gass up to third overall.
Eager to uphold the teams honours Morrow had put his inversion behind him and set a second fastest stage time on Stage 5 and then topped the leaderboard on the next test leaving him a mere 9 minutes 27 seconds behind Higgins.
However Morrow would soon run into more problems of his own, with a damaged radiator and a small engine fire forcing him to call it a day.
By now young Stuart Jones had dialled the little MG Super 2000 to his liking and was on a charge up the leader-board, taking three fastest stage times to end the day third, 24 seconds behind David Higgins. Mark was a tiny dot in the distance, a whole minute and a half further ahead.
James Wozencroft was now fourth having put in a mature drive on his first ever tarmac rally in a 4 wheel drive. Irishman Jonnie Greer was next, with Adam Gould an astonishing sixth overall in his R3 Renault Clio.
