15 September 2025 / By DAVID FERGUSON
It was fitting that the top Scottish rally driver of recent times emerged triumphant in the 50th anniversary of the Armstrong Galloway Hills Rally and it was in the south-west of the country that he set a new record of seven Scottish Championship titles.
Born and bred in Dumfries and Galloway, the 38-year-old first won the Scottish Rally Championship in 2009 when an eager 22-year-old. Like all drivers, he may have had to pick and choose when he competes in recent years as work with the family’s Oakbank Waste Management company comes first. But, with his local co-driver Kirsty Riddick on the notes around Castle Douglas, he proved that he still has the same desire and driving skill out on the stages and remains very hard to beat.
That much was clear as he romped to victory in the four SRC events in which he competed this season – McDonald and Munro Speyside Stages, the RSAC, the Voly Grampian Forest Rally and the Galloway Hills, run well on Saturday by Clerk of the Course Michael Riddick and the teams at the Solway, Machars and East Ayrshire Car Clubs.
While Jonny Greer and Niall Burns from Northern Ireland claimed second spot overall, Bogie was followed home in the SRC by another local man in Mark McCulloch, with Michael Hendry navigating (above) – another Pirelli lockout on the podium – and Mark termed their performance “fantastic”.
He said: “As far as the season has gone as a whole we have come away really pleased with our pace and being consistently the fastest non R5/Rally 2 car is all we can really hope for.
“Congratulations to Davie on a seventh Scottish title. On pace alone we were never going to win that battle but it was good fun trying and we certainly have been so much closer than ever before which feels great!
“In the co-drivers title Michael still leads going into the final round, but we think, with our workings, Kirsty needs an eighth place SRC finish or higher to take the title and it’s always nice to win these things as a crew so we hope they can pull off that result in December.”
Mark and Michael have another big project on the horizon as they have been working on building a replica F2 Vauxhall Astra GSi to contest the Roger Albert Clark Rally in November.
Event sponsor Jock Armstrong and Owen Paterson finished third on stage times, but a penalty saw them miss out by just three seconds to Dumfries driver Rory Young and Allan Cathers, their new Fabia running well on gravel for the first time.
Elsewhere at the weekend, the MG3 Challenge has set up an exciting finale as Robbie Wood and Steven Brown (above) claimed victory by just 29 seconds over close rivals Rian Walker and Paul Gribben. That leaves both crews level at the top of the championship on 113 points with the final round, the Malton Forest Rally, to come on 7 November.
And if David Bogie if sitting happy with his performances over the last 16 years, well, he might have a bit of praise for Alan McMorran, who competed in the very first Galloway Hills Rally in 1974, and was back for the 40 miles of gravel stages on Saturday in the same yellow MG3 he used to tackle the 2023 Carlisle Stages. Alan and co-driver Helen Hall finished fifth in the MG3 competition – a phenomenal 51 years after first competing in the event!
Ayr’s Duncan Campbell and co-driver Michael Cruickshank claimed their first Challenger victory by just two seconds after a terrific battle between their Impreza and the fast MK2 of Paddy Munro (Kyle) and Andrew Stevenson (Grantown). Paddy and Andrew still claimed their third G&M Mechanical Services 2wd victory in a row.
Natalie Robinson from Ripon won both the Moates Offshore Juniors and the Lady drivers titles, with Sam Collis alongside while Steve Bannister (Malton) and his Haddington navigator Callum Atkinson again took the Haddo Energy Super Seniors top spot, after swapping stage times with Robinson and Collis en route to 26th overall.
The Groundwater Lift Trucks Subaru Cup went to Elgin crew Mike Grant and Graham Kelman, who enjoyed a great contest with Jack Ryan (Castletown) & Robin Nicolson (Largs) until the latter flipped the car in the penultimate stage in Black Loch. That keeps the Subaru Cup contest running until the final round.
The Coppermines Grizedale Stages will finish off the SRC year in Cumbria on 6 December, but what the weekend made very clear was that the passion for rallying that exists in the south-west of Scotland remains unbeatable.