RALLY NEWS NO.1
Hadrian’s Camp/Friday evening…
Following a relatively low key beginning on
the Rally of Wales, the British Rally Championship takes another
step forward on this 2nd round, the Pirelli
International Rally. Former British Rally Champion, Tapio
Laukkanen, joins the fray this time in a Prodrive built Group N
Subaru Impreza. Current ANCRO Champion Steve Perez is here in his
Vodka Kick Focus WRC. Gwyndaf Evans is running the new M-Sport
built Ford Fiesta Super 1600, and the Fiat Stilo Cup begins its
campaign trail.
Heading the entry list is last year’s
Pirelli Rally winner David Higgins, this time in the works Group N
Lancer. Although keeping No.1 on the car David will start behind
Paul Bird’s Focus WRC, 6th on the road. This will
leave Mark Higgins and co driver Bryan Thomas to lead the field
away in their Focus WRC, first stage on the agenda the exciting
Super Special “P-Zero”.
Behind Mark Higgins is Jonny Milner at No.3
in the David Greer Corolla WRC. Jonny hasn’t been in rally action
for a while but he has great experience of the Toyota Corolla WRC
and David Greer has completely rebuilt the car. Austin MacHale at
No.4 is hoping for a resumption of the sort of form that took him
to outright victory on the opening championship round in Wales.
Paul Bird at No.5 is champing at the bit to get going, and joked.
“I’ll be happy enough to do rear gunner to Mark Higgins!”
David Higgins is next up, the former
British Group N Champion sure to be the yardstick for the
Production category through these fabulous Kielder and South
Scottish forest stages. Having said that, he will surely not get
it easy, either from his team mate Rory Galligan or the
irrepressible Tapio Laukkanen. Overall the Group N part of the
rally is very well supported and there are lots of really good
drivers.
Sebastian Ling at No.9 surprised many with
his speed in Wales with the Steve Petch Accent WRC and Sebastian
has pledged to give it a real big go here on the Pirelli. Jon
Ingram rounds off the top 10 in his Focus WRC. Along with Ling,
Ingram was quite a surprise package in Wales.
Gwyndaf Evans runs at No.12 in the new
Fiesta S1600, Gwyndaf says not to expect too much as this is very
much a testing exercise. Apparently as well the car had a bit of
bump during the week and there has been some midnight oil burnt at
M-Sport in Cockermouth getting the car back into shape for the
rally. Rivals in the Super 1600 category include young Cork man
Brian O’Mahony in the ex works Ford Puma at No.30. Brian has no
experience at all of Kielder so he is very much on a learning
curve. Chris Davies is in a Renault Clio in the S1600 category
and he runs at No.29.
Leon Pesticcio heads the F2000
competitors. Leon drives a Fiat Stilo but isn’t registering for
the Cup, as he is concentrating this year on the Italian series,
which leaves Shaun Woffinden as the sole registered competitor at
the moment. Also in F2000 is Robbie Dale, Swedish driver Anders
Fredricsson, and Andrew Leece, all 3 in Clios. Tom Metcalfe was
to drive a Stilo but was forced to withdraw, as was Barry Johnson
(Impreza WRC).
Finally for now we would like to express
our condolences to the family and friends of the late Phil
Branthwaite who has been involved with the running of the Pirelli
Rally for many years and was mainly responsible for putting
together the service area here at Hadrian’s Camp this weekend.
Phil was just 48 years old and sadly was struck down last week
with a heart attack.
More news after stage 2: BRIAN & LIZ
PATTERSON
www.rallynews.net
