Garry Pearson crashes out but fellow Duns driver Euan Thorburn secures podium place in 2023 Jim Clark Rally and Sunday win

Duns driver Pearson, 31, claimed his first-ever Motorsport UK British Rally Championship podium place by finishing third on home turf in the Borders rally last year and was hoping to do better still in his new Volkswagen Polo GTI R5 and with new sidekick Dan Barritt but it didn’t work out that way.

A collision with a hay-bale on the opening stage of the rally at Longformacus on Friday night left his Polo’s bodywork damaged, though it didn’t cost him any time on the way to finishing third, and he went out altogether at the next stage, a re-run of the first 11.8-mile route, after being caught out by a corner and leaving the road.

​The British championship was the main event at 2023’s rally, sponsored by Alloa-based Beatson’s Building Supplies, but it was also a stage of the Protyre National Asphalt Rally Championship and several regional competitions, and Sunday’s Jim Clark Reivers Rally saw KNC Groundworks Scottish Rally Championship contenders join in too.

Fourmaux and Alex Coria, factory drivers for Cumbria’s M-Sport, had established a 28-second lead over last year’s winner, Irish driver Keith Cronin, with Mikie Galvin alongside him, in their Ford Fiesta Rally2 by the end of Friday’s two stages and they kept their noses in front throughout Saturday’s stages to return to the Duns town centre victorious after 66 miles of racing along closed roads in the Borders.

“We can be really happy with that, and the car has been in a good position all weekend, so yes, we’re very happy,” said Fourmaux, 28, on Saturday.

“We were really enjoying the rally. It was really technical and slippery in places. We had a really good day yesterday and then we could just enjoy the stages today.”

“I am really enjoying the British Rally Championship and it is very different being on the gravel and then the Tarmac. It is really interesting.”

Cronin finished as runner-up in his Polo R5 and Euan Thorburn flew the flag for Duns in Pearson’s enforced absence by taking third place in his Ford Focus WRC with Paul Beaton alongside.

Citroen C3 Rally2 driver James Ford, of Lancashire, was fourth overall and first among the national asphalt championship challengers, with Neil Shanks as co-driver.

County Durham’s David Henderson and co-driver Chris Lees rounded out the top five in their Fiesta Rally2.

After Thorburn, 36, Dale Robertson was the next Duns driver home in eighth place, behind the wheel of a Fiesta Rally2, accompanied by Keir Beaton, with St Boswells’ Ross Hunter and co-driver Martin Woodcock 13th in their Mitsubishi Evo and Cornhill-on-Tweed’s Michael Binnie and Duns co-driver Claire Mole 14th in much the same motor.

Pearson’s mishaps left him without any points from round two of the championship, seeing him fall to ninth place on the competition’s leaderboard with eight points to his name, picked up during round one, Cumbria’s Malcolm Wilson Rally, in March.

Front-runner Fourmaux is now on 55, second-placed Cronin on 36 and Northamptonshire’s Callum Black – third among the British championship contenders at the weekend, accompanied by co-driver Jack Morton – on 25 in third place.

The championship continues with its only round staged outwith the UK, the Ardeca Ypres Rally in Belgium, on Friday and Saturday, June 23 and 24.

Round four is the Modern Tyres Ulster Rally at Newry in Northern Ireland on Friday and Saturday, August 18 and 19.

Round five is the Get Connected Rali Ceredigion at Aberystwyth in Wales on Saturday and Sunday, September 2 and 3.Filey hosts round six, the Trackrod Rally Yorkshire, on Friday and Saturday, September 22 and 23.Wrapping proceedings up will be round seven, the Visit Conwy Cambrian Rally at Llandudno in Wales, on Friday and Saturday, October 27 and 28.

Not content with his podium placing in the main event the day before, Thorburn, albeit by a margin of just 3.3 seconds, also won Sunday’s Reivers Rally for the second year running.

He was fastest on the opening stage, with Henderson as his nearest challenger, and kept just ahead of the Englishman over the course of the day’s six tests, with his time on the second pass of the Westruther stage earning him victory.

Henderson’s second place overall earned him the consolation prize of a maximum haul of Scottish Rally Championship points, however.

Arbroath’s Hugh Brunton and Brechin co-driver Drew Sturrock finished third in their Skoda Fabia R5.

Dumfries and Galloway’s Rory Young and co-driver Allan Cathers took fourth place on Sunday in their Citroen and third place among the Scottish championship contenders.

This year’s Jim Clark Rally, staged in memory of the late Berwickshire farmer and Formula One champion of that name since 1970, was the 47th altogether but only the third in the last nine years, 2015 to 2018’s having been cancelled after the deaths of three spectators in an accident in 2014 and the event’s comeback in 2019 being followed by two years off due to coronavirus restrictions.