Robbie Wood’s ascent in the Scottish rallying world continued at Jedburgh on Saturday when the 20-year-old won his class in the 2025 Border Counties Rally – despite a late change of car.
Robbie Wood (right) with co-driver Steven Brown and mechanic Scott Miller celebrate their Rally4 class win in the Border Counties Rally. Pictures courtesy of Ian Bell – see more of Ian’s rallying pics here.
Following up his MG3 win in Speyside with Steven Brown again his navigator, Wood took the Rally4 class win in his Peugeot 208 Rally4. But he experienced some drama in the lead-up to his local event, which had provided his first taste of forest rallying the year before.
The youngster thought his hopes might be blown when his own MGZR dropped a valve in testing on Thursday. However, G&M Mechanical Services from Perth stepped in with their Peugeot 208 Rally4 and owner Scott Miller provided servicing support for Robbie and Steven on the day.
“Yeah, it’s been quite an interesting couple of days,” said Wood after receiving the class trophy. “But we are really happy.
“When things changed on Thursday/Friday there’s not a huge amount you can do; you just have to get on with it, and adapt the best you can.
“We didn’t quite know where we would be starting the day, obviously, not having any experience in the car, but I felt really good in it and after getting used to it on the first stage I kinda gelled with it. The biggest challenge was the dust getting up behind other cars as we were faster than some of those around us, but none of us thought we’d be quite as fast as we were. It was good to come through and win the class.”
This was Robbie’s third rally of the year, and followed his debut rally outing last year in the Border Counties, but while he is clearly showing he has some talent for rallying the expense means he is not yet able to go full-on in rally championships.
He will be competing in his other love of quad racing when the Jim Clark event is on at the end of the month, and then will see what opportunities arise.
“It’s been great to experience rallies like Cadwell, Speyside and the Border Counties again, and it’s been amazing to finish where we did. I never expected that, so, yeah, I’m really enjoying doing more rallying.
“We have no plans going forward yet – we’ll just see what opportunities there are – but we’ll definitely be back out at some stage.”
