May 2009
Round three of the British Rally Championship is just a few weeks away, and its all about asphalt and big air. It can only mean one thing, the Jim Clark Rally. Stevie gives us the low down in his latest blog...
The press and government would have us all believe that we'll be living off bread and water for the next five years. That is of course if Swine flu doesn't get you before then. Look at the entry list for the Jim Clark Rally however, and you'll see no sign of the global recession or Swine flu (yet). It is, yet again, swamped by rallyists eager to tackle the only rally in the UK mainland to take place entirely on the closed public highway.
I'm really looking forward to the rally, it will be the first time for us on asphalt this year, and the range of fast flowing and technical stages are a great challenge. Jumps are a big feature in the event as I discovered two years ago, when the landing of a jump was so heavy, it winded my then co-driver Ian Morrison.
The dust has just settled on my 'home' event, the Granite City Rally, and by the end of it I felt like I had done an internationally event, not the third round of the Hankook Scottish Rally Championship! We were doing the event for local Children's charity Cash for Kids, with the aim of raising money and awareness of exactly what they do. Part of the promotional fundraising activities involved taking two Northsound Radio presenters around the pre-event VIP stage, where they would try their hand at reading pacenotes.
If I'm honest they were much better at reading notes than I thought, considering the first time they had even seen a set of pacenotes was twenty minutes before they got in the car! You'll be able to see how they faired and hear what they had to say about the experience soon on the site.
Back to the Jim Clark and we will be aiming for a clean run. No mistakes, no punctures and no mechanical breakages. It's been silly little things that have been stopping us from having a clean run on events this year, but we're hoping to turn that around on the Jim Clark International Rally.
Cheers for now,
Stevie
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