News from the Pirelli – and Jim Clark preview ….
“The Jim Clark Rally will be my third all-tarmac rally,” said rising Finnish rally star, Jukka Korhonen, “I’ve only done two tarmac rallies before, so I’m really looking forward to this next round of the MSA British Rally Championship.”
Korhonen was speaking at the end of the Pirelli Richard Burns Foundation Rally in Carlisle (4/5 May), the opening round of this year’s major British rallying series.
Korhonen and co-driver, Mikka Salminen, were never headed on their way to victory on this first round of the Championship and have therefore set themselves up as the crew to beat in three weeks time in Kelso.
“I have good confidence now with the car,” said Korhonen after his first competitive run out in the Citroen DS3, “so I’m not worried about tarmac after this result.”
Korhonen completed the 10 Special Stages in Kielder Forest just 42 seconds clear of County Tyrone’s Alastair Fisher, while in third place was Welshman Tom Cave. Northern Ireland’s Jonathan Greer was fourth and in fifth place was John MacCrone from the Isle of Mull.
In fact, MacCrone was lying in third place after four stages, but punctured a tyre on the fifth test which dropped him to 14th place overall. Thereafter he staged a tremendous, crowd pleasing fightback to claim fifth place.
Reared on the tarmac roads of Scotland’s only other closed public road rally, the annual Mull Rally, MacCrone is relishing the prospect of the forthcoming Jim Clark Rally. “The Pirelli was my first competitive run out in the Culina Palletforce Citroen DS3,” said the Muileach, “so I had three targets. I wanted to finish, I wanted to get comfortable in the car and I wanted to see what the pace of the others were like. I was quite pleased to set the fastest time on the final stage.”
In the same way, runner-up Alastair Fisher is looking forward to the Jim Clark too: “I haven’t done a lot of forest rallying compared to tarmac. I was reared on Irish closed road rallies so I’m looking forward to ‘sending her down the road’ in Berwickshire.”
Sounds like Korhonen will have his work cut out to maintain his British Championship lead when he arrives in Kelso in three weeks time.
In fact all the top drivers are relishing the prospect of tickling their tarmac tastebuds over 16 Special Stages on the roads of Berwickshire on the weekend of Friday 31st May and Saturday 1st June.
There was more good news for Berwickshire folk when Duns youngster Garry Pearson finished eighth overall and second in class behind Norway’s Steve Rokland. Having won the British Junior Rally Championship title and the Renault Twingo Championship last year, this was Pearson’s first competitive outing in his new Ford: “The idea was just to settle into the car and get a finish,” said Pearson, “at the start of the rally and having had a look at the entry, we would have been pleased with a top six finish, so to finish inside the top ten overall and second in class was a real bonus.”
Still grinning at the finish, despite the workload that lies ahead was Ruary MacLeod. He cowped the Fiesta in a Kielder ditch on Saturday morning. Little damage, but it’ll keep him busy and out of the pubs ahead of the Clark.
There was even more good news in the BRC Challenge event where Gareth White and Mike Dickson finished fourth overall in the wee Citroen and Steven Smith and Daniel Johnstone were sixth in the Peugeot 206 – and Ross Hunter/Josh Davidson were going well till the Peugeot broke its gearbox.
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