David Bogie and co-driver Kevin Rae recorded their second Mitsubishi Ralliart Evolution Challenge victory of the season on the Severn Valley National Rally last weekend.
They took the lead on stage three when former front-runners Keith Cronin/Greg Shinnors lost time, relegating them to third, whilst Richard Cathcart/Martin Brady finished second.
The rally started and finished at the Royal Welsh Showground in Builth Wells and featured seven timed special stages in forests on and around the Brecon Beacons. Also a qualifying round of the Pirelli MSA Gravel Rally Championship, the event's 40-car entry featured 10 Evolution Challenge crews and, once again, it was a nail-biting battle for honours in the one-make series for production specification Mitsubishi Lancers.
Stage one, a 5.57-mile blast through the notorious Esgair Dafydd forest, set the scene for the rest of the day and showed just how fierce the competition is in this year's Evolution Challenge, when five cars stopped the clock on exactly the same second: Richard Cathcart, David Bogie, Daniel Barry, Neil McCance and Jonny Greer. However, it was Cronin that set the Mitsubishi pace by crossing the line five seconds quicker than anyone else, posting a time that was good enough to see him second overall!
It was McCance that went fastest on SS2 - the 9.5-miles of Crychan West - ahead of Cronin, which meant that at the first service halt the time sheets showed Cronin in front by three seconds from McCance, both saying they were finding it difficult to judge the right pace. Cathcart followed a further three seconds later and admitted that he was not feeling on top of things, with Bogie the same margin behind having decided to build up his pace gradually after his disappointing results in rounds two and three.
