Find out why the real ‘Stig’ is coming to Perthshire

Sep 6 2011 by Andrew Welsh, Perthshire Advertiser Tuesday

FORGET the Top Gear character – the real ‘Stig’ is coming to Perthshire.

Swedish rallying superstar Stig Blomqvist will be competing in this year’s Colin McRae Forest Stages Rally in Aberfeldy on October 1.

Blomqvist had entered the 2008 Colin McRae Rally ‘tribute’ event, but unfortunately, was unable to take part due to a sudden illness in his then co-driver’s family.

Since then he has been eager to return to Scotland and to the Colin McRae Forest Stages Rally to pay his own tribute to the former world champion.

This year, Stig has teamed up with former World Rally Championship co-driver, Phil Mills, who has established his own Viking Motorsport rally car engineering and preparation business in Wales.

The duo will contest the rally in one of Phil’s evocative Viking Motorsport Ford Escort MkII rally cars. Powered by a two-litre BDG, with five-speed ZF gearbox and an Atlas axle, the Group Four ‘works replica’ Escort will provide an unforgettable sight and sound on the rally.

Since he started rallying back in 1967, Blomqvist has driven for every major car manufacturer and just about every successful works rally team from two-wheel drive V4 Saabs to four-wheel drive turbocharged Audi Quattros.

But the Ford Escort MkII holds a special attraction and fascination.

“The word legend is often used in sport, but I think it’s safe to say that Stig qualifies on that count many times over,” said Jim Brown, chairman of Coltness Car Club, the rally’s organisers

“He is a past world champion, has been a star driver for Saab, Audi, Talbot and Ford, not to mention the fact that Top Gear’s anonymous race driver also took his name.

“That he will be competing on the Colin McRae Forest Stages Rally shows the attraction this rally, the classic Perthshire stages and historic rallying, exerts on the enthusiast.

“We’ve already been contacted by rally fans from around the UK asking if Stig will be there – because people will travel from far and wide just to see him and the Escort in action.”

The Perthshire stages also hold wonderful memories for Stig as he contested the International Scottish Rally in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s through some of the same forests, although he only won ‘the Scottish’ once, in 1983.

This year’s Colin McRae Forest Stages Rally will be the final round of the 2011 national Scottish Rally Championship and will be based entirely in Aberfeldy and the forests of Perthshire on October 1.

Organised by Coltness Car Club, the one-day national rally is supported by Perth and Kinross Council and EventScotland, the national events agency.

For more information, visit www.coltnesscarclub.com