Muir of Ord driver Scott MacBeth along with Elgin co-driver Daniel Forsyth<\/a>, who finished third at last year\u2019s Snowman Rally in Ross-shire, are also considered contenders for the title with their Skoda Fabia R5.<\/p>\nOther Moray drivers taking part in the rally include Dougal Brown from Forres in a Ford Escort MK 2, Brett McKenzie from Elgin in a Mitsubishi Evo 8, Michael Philip from Alves in a Ford Escort MK 2, Robert Tonge from Elgin in an MG ZR and Neil Philip from Alves in a Subaru Impreza.<\/p>\n
Clerk of the course Neil Shanks says it promises to be a competitive field to start the Scottish Rally Championship season.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cTeams have been out throughout this week to prepare the course in the forests for this weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a really competitive field for the rally which will be under 90 cars and we are happy with that level.<\/p>\n
\u201cQuality wise it looks like it will be really competitive again.\u201d<\/p>\n
The safety scrutineering event takes place on the High Street in Elgin on Friday as cars will undergo their final safety checks.<\/p>\n
The rally will start as tradition around the perimeter roads at Cooper Park in Elgin on Saturday at 9am.<\/p>\n
The forest stages this year will take place between Elgin, Fochabers and Keith.<\/p>\n
Competitors will stop twice at the service area at Keith Showground during the day before heading back towards Elgin.<\/p>\n
There is also a spectators area at Whiteash outside Fochabers for people to watch the cars in action.<\/p>\n
The winners ceremony will take place at Moray College in Elgin at around 4pm.<\/p>\n
Shanks says the start of the event at Cooper Park is always well attended by spectators and is a major part of what makes the rally so special.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cWe always try and make the Speyside Stages more than just a motorsport event.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to make an occasion for the town and the communities where the rally takes place.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe scrutineering event on Friday and spectator events at Cooper Park is ideal for people to get their first experience of rally driving.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully we get nice weather for the event and a chance for people in Elgin to experience something which they might see only once a year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Do you want to respond to this article? If so, click here<\/b><\/a> to submit your thoughts and they may be published in print. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MORAY is set to welcome top rally drivers from across Scotland as the Speyside Stages are set to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42044,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5009],"tags":[23672,748,4884,6685,1501,23671,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-42043","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scotland","8":"tag-all-sport","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-keep-me-on-trend","12":"tag-latest-news","13":"tag-other-sport","14":"tag-scotland","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114383613090772268","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}