Cream of Britain's talent heads off on the big test

state-of-the-art competition cars to army Land-Rovers will embark on

Scotland's premier motor sport event, the Perth Scottish Rally.

Ahead of them lies a 700-mile route including 158 flat-out miles

through some of Scotland's most challenging forest and mountain track

terrain, taking in 26 special stages that combine to provide the

stiffest challenge in the Mobil/Top Gear British championship.

Although European championship status has failed to attract

continental runners, the cream of Britain's rally talent gathered

earlier this week to prepare for the event, which allows crews to

compile advanced reconnaisance notes over the competitive route.

Heading the entry is 37-year-old Cumbrian veteran Malcolm Wilson,

partnered by Bryan Thomas, in Ford's dramatic rallying machine, the

howling, winged Escort Cosworth, which blazed a trail on the Scottish

Rally last year.

Whereas last year the nimble and fearsomely fast Escort covered most

of the ground faster than official winner Colin McRae's Subaru Legacy,

it was ineligible and fulfilled a ghost or shadow role as part of Ford's

development programme.

This weekend Wilson and the car, which leads the world championship,

return to Scotland to turn theoretical speed into tangible results after

having failed to win the opening two rounds of the British championship

due to niggling technical hassles.

Wilson last won the Scottish in 1985 driving a bellowing Audi quattro

and resurrected an interrupted career after breaking both ankles when

his RS1800 Escort somersaulted off a Highland forest track in 1980.

While the Escort failed to deliver Britain's reigning national

champion, Richard Burns, 22, has exploited his knowledge of the

substantial Elonex-backed Subaru Legacy to open up a 14-point series

lead with victories in the Vauxhall Rally of Wales and Pirelli

International.

Burns shares the raucous Japanese machine with Perth's Robert Reid and

hopes local knowledge will pay dividends on his co-driver's native

heath. With Burns's team-mate, 22-year-old Alister McRae, keen to add

his name to those of father Jimmy (1988) and brother Colin (1991 and

1992) as Scottish Rally winner, Burns will have to exploit his intimate

operational knowledge of the Subaru to stay ahead.

McRae, the younger, is tipped to join his brother on the world series

stage and last year made his Group N Sierra travel more rapidly than

many full-house Group A counterparts, finishing second in the Scottish.

If Wilson, Burns, and McRae are likely to be locked in a three-way

battle for outright honours, the Group N production class struggle will

be just as fierce. Welsh school bus driver Gwyndaf Evans, whose

works-assisted Escort Cosworth has two category wins to its credit, has

to contend with Kilmarnock's Robbie Head and McRae clan chief Jimmy in

similar cars.

Head, 25, eclipsed McRae senior last year, preventing a family

one-two-three, but his inclusion with Wilson in the works Ford

organisation has not produced anticipated results this season and he

plans to make a point on home ground.

Jimmy, five times winner of the British Open title, registered his new

machine only on Tuesday after burning much midnight oil screwing the car

together at the family's Lanark motor sport unit.

Shell Scholarship recipient Jonny Milner will stalk the Ford trio in

his hefty Audi S2 Coupe, hopeful that recent development work by Jimmy

McRae has helped make up time.

Welsh farmer Dai Llewellin, three times a Scottish winner, has stepped

down to the less powerful front-wheel-drive Vauxhall Astra GSi and is an

obvious favourite for Formula Two (two-wheel-drive) honours. He will not

be that far behind the 4X4 muscle Group N cars.

Most of the Burmah Scottish championship brigade have opted for the

national class, which takes an early bath in Perth tomorrow night, but

Carnwath's John Gray, handling a Ford Sierra Cosworth, runs one starting

place ahead of Milner and will complete the full international course.

Last year both Gray and eventual domestic champion, Culloden's Raymond

Munro, made spectacular and painful exits from the event and this

weekend Munro wields an MG Metro 6R4 in the national class, eager to

close the gap on Scottish championship runaway Murray Grierson, who will

not tackle the Perth event.

Spectators arriving 1[1/4] hours ahead of the international runners

may be forgiven they are caught in a time warp as seven historic

machines, ranging from Rob Pilcher's Hillman Imp to the Porsche 911 of

Richard Jackson, thrash their way through the forest in an evocative

curtain-raiser to the main event.

Jonathan Lord, the rally's mainstay and clerk of the course, has asked

competitors, their support service crews, and spectators to abide by the

Royal Scottish Automobile Club's motto, ''gang warily'', when driving

between special stages.

Rallying depends on the tolerance of the general motoring public,

police, and landowners and without that goodwill the sport cannot

survive.