The Voyonic Grampian Forest Rally takes place this weekend, with Johnnie Mackay looking to take full advantage of his home event.
The reigning John Easson Award winner is a member of the organising club, Stonehaven DMC, so will be guaranteed lots of friendly faces when he takes the start.
And this event marked Johnnie’s first ever gravel rally, back in 2018.
“I’m hoping to get a good run this weekend as the team will have lots of supporters in attendance,” he said.
“The stages are run in two forests, Fetteresso, which is really quick, and Drumtochty, which is much more technical. With a total of 44 competitive miles, there’s no room for error.”
The highly-rated Mackay will also have the benefit of an early sight of the stages tomorrow, after being invited to bring his Mitsubishi Evo7 to a VIP day, giving guests a taste of high-speed gravel rallying.
Gear selection problems hampered Johnnie’s progress last time out on the Scottish Rally, but the team discovered the fault was a relative easy fix, as the clip securing the gear cables had broken.
“We were mightily relieved it was only that, and not a full gearbox rebuild,” explained Johnnie.
“We also discovered a cracked water pump pulley whilst checking over the car on Sunday, which would never have lasted the rally.”
Johnnie and co-driver Rachel Matheson are seeded at car 40, with the 90-strong field leaving the ceremonial start In Banchory town centre at 9am on Saturday morning
Johnnie Mackay Rallying would like to thank his supporters
2300 Club John Easson Award
ISS Aberdeen Ltd
Kewtech
Vans4u Aberdeen
Strathdon Solutions
GPM
Stark Motorsport
Pirelli Motorsport
Andrew Wood Motorsport
DamperTek
