FORMER five-times Scottish champion David Bogie opened the ARR Craib-backed 2017 season in impressive fashion on Saturday when he took victory on the Inverness-based Arnold Clark Jurys Inn Snowman Rally.

However, instead of snow, it was wet and muddy forest tracks that welcomed the crews, most struggling at some point during the course of the day for much needed grip and traction. Bogie though, had no such problems.

“We started well and the car ran faultless through the day. The only problem we had was having to learn the braking points with the DMACK tyres. Once we did that, we could commit a bit more and have a real go,” said Bogie.

Over the first test, three crews – Bogie, reigning champion Jock Armstrong and Shaun Sinclair – were all credited with identical times having bettered the bogey time set by the event organisers.

It was though, the only occasion anyone came close to Bogie, co-driven by Kevin Rae, the Dumfries driver easing his Skoda Fabia R5 five seconds ahead of the field over the second stage, before blitzing the 13.3 mile Strath Rory test 28 seconds quicker than Euan Thorburn, was working his way back up the charts after clipping a rock, though his main problem had been a slow start.

"We knew we would be slow in the first stage – I wasn’t going fast enough to see how slippery it was!" admitted the Fiesta R5 driver who would eventually take the final podium place.

Bogie’s main challenger on the leader board continued to be Oban’s Sinclair in his Subaru, but having beaten him by 35 secs over SS3, Bogie continued to pull away over the two remaining timed sections to eventually win by almost a minute from Sinclair, with Thorburn in third a further 22 seconds down.

1, D Bogie (Skoda) 37m 51s

2, S Sinclair (Subaru) 38m 49s

3, E Thorburn (Fiesta), 39m 11s

4, J Armstrong (Subaru) 39m 13s

5, R Young (Fiesta), 39m 50s

6, B McCombie (Mitsubishi) 39m 59s

7, S Clark (Mitsubishi) 40m 01s

8, M McCulloch (Mitsubishi) 40m 09s

9, M Faulkner (Mitsubishi) 40m 15s

10, D MacDonald (Fiesta), 40m 38s