Day 2 Scottish Malts 2025 - Pitlochry to Aviemore

The rich Scottish tapestry of colours, landscapes and incredible names, some of them royal, continue to astound on this wonderful Scottish Malts Rally 2025. Royal Lochnagar Distillery, once visited by Queen Victoria, Braemar where King Charles loves to watch the Royal Highland Games, Balmoral where the late Queen Elizabeth used to love staying or Glenfiddich & Dufftown, the biggest exporter of whisky in the UK. All the names and places were along the fantastic route on day two of the Scottish Malts Rally. Imagine what the competitors from the Bahamas, the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Lebanon and Europe were thinking as they not only drove the magnificent route, but passed some of the deep rooted heritage for which Great Britain is famous.

They were all distinctive landmarks with great history, but the biggest vote earner from the 40 crews was the rite of passage for rally cars over the Cairngorm Mountains to Glen Shee, the largest ski resort in Scotland with 36 runs. To get to the top, over the sinuous roads between interloping hills and mountains, scooped out in the ice age, was just wondrous. Following the first regularity lower down in Drumore, the climb to the top was marked by a test called Jacob’s Ladder run under the ski lifts in the grey mist and spitty rain, a condition known in Scotland as ‘Dreich!’ 

All that was temporarily forgotten as crews got back into the competition side of the rally on the lower slopes of the regularities of Tom Mor and Durris as time was lost and cars had to be turned around when many passed a ‘No Through Road’ sign on the road when they were meant to turn left. This included the leaders Dick and Harry Baines in their new Porsche (to them) as they lost a reported 17 seconds and now just lead the pursuing Sarah and Ken Binstead in their Austin Healey by four seconds. Paul Hernaman and ‘Crow’ are now up to third in their Porsche 924S as we said, watch out for them yesterday! There were six regularities and three tests on day two.    

However, the undoubted highlight of the day was the visit and lunch halt at Blairs, Mike Dreelan’s estate where he put on the most incredible display of his car and historic steam vehicle collection, which the majority found absolutely astounding, and for which HERO-ERA are so grateful to Mike for hosting. He put a huge amount of work into laying on the special display of working traction engines, and the steam driven fairground attractions with a complete Victorian ‘Galloper’ horse ‘Merry go Round.’ There was fairground music to go with the ride which event HERO-ERA Competition Director Guy Woodock rode on. Not content with entertaining the group, Mike allowed his grounds to be used for a lovely gravelly, slippy test right after lunch called ‘Mike’s Place!’

Mike gave us some background information on the incredible displays and show he put on for everybody: Mike; “First of all, it's an absolute pleasure to be able to assist and help you guys out as you know, I do a lot of rallying with HERO-ERA, and you guys have always been very good to me.

“When Guy told me that this rally was taking place, and asked if we could host everyone, we naturally said yes. It didn't really take that long, because, as you can see, behind the big sheds, a lot of the steam engines are always parked in the way they are. And behind this building, there's another building where I keep cars, and then down at my house there's a there's also a building where I keep more cars. When Guy had asked me if they could come here for the rally, we hoped for a fine day, so we were lucky. I brought all the cars and laid them out. I've only taken two steam engines out, because there's quite a lot of work in firing them up and getting them in steam, the rest I've left in the buildings on static display.

“There's 21 cars all laid out as you come in. There's two steam engines out on display. They're quite famous engines. One of them is a Fowler Road Locomotive, one of the last Fowler Road Locomotives built, and the Showman’s Engine. Behind it is the last Fowler Showman's engine also built. If you look at the engine on the fairground one, it's also a locomotive which pulled the ride from place to place, and then they use the generator on the front to generate electricity for the rides. For example, if you look at the Gallopers inside, they would have needed a steam engine to generate electricity for all the lighting on it. Now that particular Gallopers is 1882, the oldest in the world, and it's driven by a steam engine!”

Mike was asked about his rallying and how his recovery was continuing following his serious accident on the Peking to Paris Motor Challenge in 2024.

“My comeback was on the Pearl of India earlier this year, it was fantastic. It was brilliant, and the next one I'm going to do is the Gaucho Trail in South America next year, and there's a possibility I might do The Flying Scotsman as well, to date, I haven't done the Flying Scotsman because I've always been tied up with something else.

“I've already signed up for Peking to Paris 2028, the Lagonda that I had the accident in during the 2024 rally is well on the way, all the body work is completed. My next task on that is to build a roll cage, because I'm not allowed go without a roll cage now! But I feel it's unfinished business on the P2P.”

HERO-ERA are indebted to Mike Dreelan for his incredible generosity and kindness in allowing the rally to visit his estate and for putting on such an incredible display of not just historic and classic cars, but undoubtedly the best collection of steam driven vehicles in Europe.

Although they dropped down the order on day two after the ‘No Through Road’ incident, father and son Stephen and Thomas Owens have teamed up again as they did two years ago when they very nearly won.

Stephen; “So we set off very well yesterday, we were his second overall on the day and set off very well again this morning. So I'm optimistic, as ever!”

Thomas, rarely rallies, this is probably the first rally for him since the last one two years ago. Thomas said; “I try my best, even as we only do one every two years, like you say, we did really well in the last one and we've set off well in on this one, but we just had a little issue in the last regularity, as did many, everybody seemed to be in the wrong direction, so we all had to turn around and go back in the right direction!”

Stephen; “Nevertheless, it's still challenging. It is the Scottish Malts, but what a superb rally, an outstanding rally, and it's a rally that people very much enjoy, whether you're a novice or very good, it's testing for everybody. So, we really do enjoy it.”

Stephen continued, “The roads are outstanding, this is Scotland at its best. The driving roads are incredible, the weather's been kind to us, and we're just looking forward to the next three days.

Thomas was asked to comment on Mike Dreelan’s hospitality and display. “What he's laid on for us here and his collection is amazing, isn't it? I mean, I've never seen anything like it. I was quite interested to know why he's gone down the road of steam engines and fairground rides and everything else, but it's an amazing thing, and everything is immaculate.”

Leaders Dick and Harry Baines described their day as ‘dodgy’ and ‘scrappy.’ “A dodgy day that was kind of an up and down day” said Harry. “Well, most everybody went wrong on that regularity with the ‘No Through Road” he said as he loaded his ‘just purchased’ Glenfiddich to go with his other whisky in his special bag to be sampled when he gets home! 

Dick added; Okay, we were, a bit scrappy today, but what I don't think we've done any worse than anyone else, but we haven't excelled ourselves!”

Alfred and Philip Dobson also suffered on the NTR trap as Philip explained;  We had a good afternoon, but the morning was a bit more of a challenge. We got done by the ‘No Through Road’ by six minutes! Thank God for the Joker!” Alfred added; “ But we weren't alone. No, there were few of us turning around at the bottom of the road!”

Steve and Julia Robertson have climbed the leaderboard to fifth despite their technical issues with the MGB GT V8 and a wrong turn today by Steve!

Steve; “The car just died yesterday but that's all fixed and it’s been fine. The regularities have been good, and then right at the end of the third regularity, I missed a turn. My excuse is that the sun was in my eyes, and on a wet road, I didn't see the white line. So we've used our Joker on the last timing point on one of the regularities this afternoon. But otherwise, apart from that, everything's very good thank you.”

James and Gill Holt have been mighty on day two in their Mercedes 280 SL Pagoda with the drophead, which they kept down during the afternoon. The issue was on the penultimate regularity, the ‘Giants Chair,’ when the rain decided to become biblical in its cascade, absolutely drenching Gill and James, but they kept going, even reaching for the sun visors at one point in a desperate attempt to keep some of the Giant Rain off them, but to no avail. They turned off right at the end of the reg to pull the hood up. Their valour earned then fourth place overall!   

Clerk of the Course Guy Woodcock had the last word. “Car 15 ended up in a ditch on the regularity, I think they just pulled over and fell into the ditch. The tests were good fun, everybody seemed to enjoy both tests. Mike's test was nice and gravelly and a bit loose, so everybody enjoyed it, as they did Mike’s hospitality and wonderful displays, for which we thank him so much.

“With the ‘No Through Road’ sign right in front of you, the instructions say do not pass a NTR sign. I was talking to Louise Morton about it and she said, ‘I had my head down and Peter said, I think we just passed a NTR sign, so I said to Peter, why?’  So basically cars came round the corner and they should have turned left, because there was a ‘No Through Road’ sign straight ahead of them.”