Organisers of a Perthshire motorsport challenge held in honour of Colin McRae have made a series of radical changes to this year’s event.
The Colin McRae Forest Stages Rally now in its 21st year will set off from Perth city centre. Times have also been altered to allow for more drivers and their crews to take part.
The run, which will see dozens of cars racing through central Perthshire woodland, will take place over the weekend of October 3 and 4.
This year the competitor sign-in and technical checks will be on Saturday morning, rather than Friday afternoon, ahead of a midday start.
The rally will end 24 hours later with a public forum, giving spectators the rare chance to put their questions to representatives of the Motor Sports Safety Review Group.
Organisers at Lanarkshire-based Coltness Car Club said the changes were to help competitors from across the UK who had previously struggled to get time off work on Friday to get to Perthshire in time for the traditional Saturday morning start.
There will be three special stages on Forestry Commission roads on day one, with the final two stages the next morning.
The race begins in Perth rather than Aberfeldy, the base for the last five years.
Club chairman Jim Brown said: “We realise the new format will not please all of the competitors but we are keen to try something different.
“If the competitors support it, then it will give us food for thought next year, but if they don’t like it, then we may well revert to tradition.”
He added: “Motorsports are always about going forward and trying something new and Coltness Car Club are always keen to innovate and experiment.”
The rally represents the final round of this year’s MSA ARR Craib Scottish Rally Championship. The event was named after Colin McRae, a former club member who won the World Rally Championship title in 1995.
Colin was heavily involved in the early days of the event and continued to take an interest in club activities during his World Championship years.
The club said it is grateful to the McRae family for allowing it to keep using Colin’s name in the title of the event, following his death in a helicopter accident in 2007.