Kielder awaits the brave
Round two of the VK Fiesta SportingTrophy UK series takes place next Saturday as crews head to the border town of Carlisle for the Pirelli National Rally. The event will give competitors over fifty miles of classic, challenging forest tracks in the largest man made forest complex in Europe - Kielder.
Sixteen registered crews will take to the start of the rally supported by FST series partner, Pirelli. The event has a notorious reputation of being fast and dangerous so FST crews will not only be battling amongst themselves but also the terrain.
The first round of the championship, the Malcolm Wilson Rally, saw close competition to the very end. Going into the final stage of the rally, newcomer Stevie Brown (20) from Peterhead and Liam Regan (20) from Belfast were joint on time with FST regular James Everard (22) from Hull only five seconds adrift. In the end it was Brown who came out on top to take maximum points with Everard in second and Regan third.
Brown will lead the crews away for the rally and will be partnered again by the experienced Ian Morrison. After using the Border Counties rally last weekend as a test, Brown set some impressive times and will be hoping to repeat his round one success.
Everard will again be partnered by Sam Collis, while Regan will have a new co-driver in Neil Dashfield (a former navigator of championship sponsor, Steve Perez) for the rest of the series; both drivers return hoping for a similar result to round one. Since the first round, Regan has also competed in a number of rallies away from the series helping him gain some invaluable seat time and experience.
After a disappointing start for the possible title contenders of Alastair Fisher (19) from Enniskillen, Kris Hall (18) from Appleby and Elfyn Evans (19) from Machynlleth, all three will be back to attempt to take maximum points from the rally.
Fisher, who suffered a mechanical retirement on the Malcolm Wilson Rally, coupled with an unlucky start in the Irish Fiesta Championship is desperate to get his title hopes back on track and, after leading round one until he retired, will be certainly one to watch in the fast Kielder forest.
Hall comes into the rally with a new navigator in Seb Marshall, who is well known and experienced in the FST championship. After winning his class on the recent Border Counties rally against four other championship FST competitors Hall will be upbeat about his chances.
Evans managed to fight back from a mechanical problem on round one to walk away with a valuable point. After back-to-back wins on the first two Fiesta SportingTrophy Ireland rounds Evans will be looking to continue his winning streak; Elfyn will be joined by his regular GEMSport teammate Meilyr Evans (18).
Following a big accident in Ireland Kyle Orr (18) from Dromore, again partnered by Tony McDaid, brings his freshly rebuilt Fiesta ST back to hopefully improve on his excellent fourth place in the current drivers’ standings.
Barry Greer (20) from Carryduff, co-driven by John Lemon, is registered for both UK and IE FST series and with a steadily increasing pace on all the stages he has so far tackled, Greer is becoming a serious challenger, and will look to score some points after an unfortunate no score on round one.
The Pirelli National Rally also sees the return of many of the crews from round one, including Max Utting (22) partnered by the only female in the series Jemma Bellingham, Alick Kerr (19) from Bothwell and John Lloyd who has a repaired car after a roll on round one which dropped him to ninth in the overall results.
Championship regulars Richard Archer and Clive Hilton return to support the series, and with both crews highly experienced and capable of very good results, the younger crews need to be wary of the pace of the experienced.
Richard Parry-Jones also returns to rallying for the first time in 2008 after a successful season in last year’s UK FST series where he scored on three separate events. Parry-Jones will be partnered by Sara Price on next week’s event.
The FST UK also welcomes a new crew to the line up, Luke Francis (18) from Denbigh will be partnered by Chris Jones and is to use an ex Elfyn Evans car to complete the rest of the championship. Francis has no rallying experience so the series will be a steep learning curve but with the calibre of drivers it will help him to develop his talent alongside the best in the country.
Registered crews are competing for a prize fund of £17,550 over the course of the year, with the winner on each round taking home £750, decreasing to £75 for eighth position - a total of £2,295 on each round of the series.
FST championship leader Stevie Brown said:
“With some really tough competition on the Pirelli we'll need to get a clean run to be in with a chance of getting on the podium. Hopefully everyone will make it to the finish, leaving it to a clean, close fight to decide the winner. I think everyone will be pushing harder on this rally, and I wouldn't be surprised if the pace is even quicker than the first round, but I’m up for the challenge.”