27 January 2026 / By David Ferguson
The forests of the Tweed Valley will return to the Scottish rallying calendar this year after the Border Counties Rally was confirmed as the second event in the Scottish Rally Championship for 2026.
This year’s championship will begin with the Snowman Rally back on February 14th, after a late cancellation last year due to forest access issues, and with the Speyside falling by the wayside due to forest access and nesting issues, all cars will then head for the Border Counties Rally on March 14th.
The Border Counties, organised by the Hawick Car Club and Berwick Motor Club, has started and finished in Jedburgh in recent years and been part of the British Trials and Rally Drivers Association (BTRDA) Championship. But for its return to the SRC it will start and finish at the Scottish Borders Council HQ in Newtown St Boswells on Saturday 14th March, and feature six stages in the Tweed Valley’s Craik, Elibank and Yair forests.
Huge excitement at Borders’ return to Scottish Championship
One of the organisers is long-time co-driver Dave Robson, and he admitted that there is huge excitement across the rallying world at the possibility of rallying through the popular forests of the Borders.
“The confirmation that we’re back in has been welcomed from across rallying in Scotland and the UK, but it is also exciting for the Borders to have the Scottish Rally Championship back in the area,” he said.
“We’ve been busy over the festive period out and about visiting people along the routes of the rally to make sure everyone is aware of what is planned, and the safety measures that are in place for the rally, and we’ve had some great feedback from people who remember the rallies of old.
“The Tweed Valley and the Borders was famous in the 1980s and 1990s for the rally and guys like Ken and Andrew Wood, George Marshall and Dom Buckley put rallying where it is on the world map as the ‘Kings of the Tweed Valley’.
“It’s only been nine years since we were there but a lot of the top rally drivers these days are pretty young so the current crop of Scottish Rally Championship competitors will never have been in these stages, and rally crews always like new challenges.
“It’s also a fresh challenge for the organising team and all our set-up men and women, and the many marshals who we hope will come and help us out on the day, will all be excited to be in new stages.”
Galashiels to welcome back rally crews
While rally cars will again be visible on the roads through Galashiels to and from Rally HQ at Newtown St Boswells this year, as they move between servicing, the organising team have worked on creating a rally that causes as little disruption to the public as possible while also keeping the ever-increasing costs of competing down for crews.
The rally will launch with a classic nine-mile stage in Craik Forest, but run in a different direction to previous years, and will finish with nine and a half miles in Elibank, ensuring a very scenic and competitive start and finish to the rally, while all servicing and other activity is based in Newtown St Boswells.
“This is a very important moment for Borders rallying,” added Robson. “There is a feeling that this is where the Border Counties belong, in the Scottish Rally Championship. We had great years in the BTRDA, but the ‘Scottish’ is where the event wants to be.
“It will be a treat for the competitors and great for the Borders. We’re in March, which is traditionally a quiet time of year for us in the area. Scotland are playing away in Ireland that weekend in the Six Nations, and we expect it to bring a lot of people to the area for the weekend.
“We’ve had people coming from the far north of Scotland and the south of England in recent years, and even a lad from Iceland, and because we’re a fresh ‘Scottish’ event I expect entries this year from across the UK and Ireland. And, with the likes of South drivers Garry Pearson, Euan Thorburn, David Bogie, Robert Proudlock and newcomer Robbie Wood – and international co-driver Hannah McKillop from Newstead – all winning events in recent years, it will stoke a lot of competition from within the Borders and Dumfries and Galloway itself.
“So, I’d hope a lot of hotels and bed spaces across the Borders are taken up, and bars and restaurants are busy on Friday and Saturday especially – some people always make a few days of it – which will be great for Borders tourism.”
The return of the Border Counties Rally means that there will be two Borders events in the SRC this year, and with the news that the popular Speyside Stages have unfortunately been cancelled, due to restrictions around forest access and bird nesting sites – the Counties has been brought forward from its usual May date to March to avoid Tweed Valley spring nesting – the Borders Competitions Jim Clark Rally will now be the third event, with its BRC and SRC events running over the weekend of 22nd to 24th May.
The Scottish championship will then head to Dunoon for the Argyll Rally and Dumfries and Galloway for the Scottish and Galloway Hills events either side of the Grampian Forest Rally in a seven-rally championship. Entries for the Border Counties Rally open next week.