by Geoff Mayes


Mark Higgins took another dominant win this weekend in almost a repeat of 2007 where once again he was chasing Guy Wilks before profiting from a problem with the works Mitsubishi. This marked the fourth year in a row that Mark has stood on the top step of the podium on this high speed tarmac rally.

The rally, rather unusually, only began on Saturday morning, opening with the longest stage of the whole event. At 16 miles in length Abbey St Bathans offered a combination of everything from narrow twisty B roads to fast flowing top gear sections – and Guy Wilks immediately set about taking control. Not only was he 5 seconds faster than Mark Higgins, but Wilks was also second fastest overall, a mere 1.2 seconds behind the leading Irish World Rally Car.

By contrast Wilks team-mate had had a nightmare of a start. Phillip Morrow managed to roll his Evo 9 less than 3 miles into the stage. Although he eventually continued the car was not looking quite as pristine as it had at the ceremonial start in Kelso the night before.

Third fastest was David Higgins in his Subaru N14 but he was a full 30 seconds behind his brother through this opening test. Following close behind were two young guns. Darren Gass, the 2007 Pirelli Star drive winner, and James Wozencroft rounded off the top five as the crews headed off to Stage 2.

Fogo saw Mark and Guy finish equal on stage times, pretty impressive considering Mark was in a four year old Subaru N11, hardly the latest spec Impreza. Third was once again David Higgins but he was not overly happy with the set-up of his car and was looking forward to the first service.

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.