Stourbridge rally driver Richard Sykes is hoping his years
of experience of the Jim Clark rally will help him take a win in the second
round of the BRC Challenge championship. Sykes finished second overall and
first in class on last year’s event and he is aiming to go one better this year
in his Bathams Brewery, G I Sykes Ltd and Boroughbridge Marina-supported Citroën
C2 R2 Max .
After an opening round on gravel forest tracks round two of
the championship sees the crews compete on the tough closed public roads of the
Scottish Borders and the tight and twisty stages should suit Sykes’ car as it
was designed to rally on the tarmac lanes of France.
“The car should be ideal for the type of stages used on the
rally, especially stages like Abbey St Bathans which is long, narrow and
bumpy,” said Sykes. “Simon Hawthorne has meticulously prepared and converted
the car from gravel to tarmac spec and, together with co-driver Simon Taylor
and our BF Goodrich tarmac tyres the team is looking very strong.”
“We led the rally overnight two years ago and eventually
finished second after a long battle and again finished second last year because
of a puncture, so we will be really looking for a win this time. It’s essential
for our championship defence that we do well, we have a car advantage on this
event with it being designed for tarmac stages and we must make that count,
especially with the very tough competition that we’ll be up against.”
“It will be my tenth visit to the event so I have plenty of
experience of the stages. Even so, we’ll be putting 100% into our preparation
and working very hard on the recce before the rally to make sure our pacenotes
are correct. We cannot afford to make any mistakes.”
“We need to capitalise on our tarmac strength and if all
goes well It would give us the lead in the championship table after this event
which would put us in great shape for the rest of the season.”
The
rally starts on Friday evening with a spectator stage in Duns town centre and
then the crews will face another 10 stages before finishing on Saturday
afternoon.