Stourbridge’s Richard Sykes will finish his British Rally
Championship (BRC) Challenge season later this week when he contests Rally Isle
of Man in his Bathams Brewery and G I Sykes Ltd-backed Citroën C2 R200 with
co-driver Emma Morrison.
Sykes will be trying to win back the championship he won in
2012, having finished as the runner up last year. He holds a four point lead in
the title race but with the Manx event counting as two separate rounds, with
extra points available for the last round, the championship is still all to
play for.
“It’s difficult to know how to play it,” said Sykes.
“Do we go steady and aim to survive the 75 miles of stages in the first round,
thereby making sure we take part in the second or do we go flat out from the
start and aim to win them both. One thing is for sure and that is that two
finishes are more important than the wins as, the way the points are, I really
have to score on both rounds.”
“It’s been four years since I competed on the Isle of Man so I’m really looking forward to it. It’s a very challenging event, the roads are tight and twisty and the weather usually throws everything at us with very changeable conditions. It can go from brilliant sunshine to rain and mist in a few minutes. It’s certainly a huge test of crew and car.”
“It’s been four years since I competed on the Isle of Man so I’m really looking forward to it. It’s a very challenging event, the roads are tight and twisty and the weather usually throws everything at us with very changeable conditions. It can go from brilliant sunshine to rain and mist in a few minutes. It’s certainly a huge test of crew and car.”
“I am hoping that, whatever the result, we will get to have
a great fight and enjoy some good sport as the championship has been a little
flat this year with the incidents that have happened. It would be good to end
on a positive note.”
“Our car is looking good and, with previous round being
stopped after a few miles, we have been able to concentrate on making sure the
fine details are right so the car is ready for 166 tough stage miles.”
The rally starts on Thursday night with four stages in the
dark including a very popular spectator stage which runs along Douglas
promenade. The action continues through Friday before the event finishes at the
TT Grandstand on Saturday afternoon.
Image courtesy raceandrally.co.uk
Image courtesy raceandrally.co.uk
