WITH the McGrady Insurance Northern Ireland Rally Championship title safely in the bag for another year, Jonny Greer has elected to skip Saturday’s fifth and final round.
Instead of tackling the roads around Benone for Cookstown Motor Club’s Tyrone Stages Rally, the Citroen C3 Rally2 driver is travelling to Scotland for the 78th RSAC Scottish Rally on Saturday, July 20 – an event that has Colin McRae, Ari Vatanen, Hannu Mikkola and Stig Blomqvist among its winners.
As an indication of how seriously five-time national champion Greer is taking the event – the mid-point of the Scottish Rally Championship – he entered last month’s Kielder Forest Rally and ended runner-up, 12 seconds behind the Ford Fiesta R5 of Matthew Hirst and Declan Dear after six stages.
The extra seat time for the Dalbeattie-based event should prove useful for Greer, who will trade times with last year’s winner Jock Armstrong (Skoda Fabia Rally2), and David Bogie (Volkswagen Polo GTI R5). With Cushendall’s John Rowan on the notes, the latter is aiming for a record-extending eighth victory.
Current Scottish Rally Championship points leader Euan Thorburn and title-chasing Finlay Reston are seeded at three and four and make it three Volkswagen Polo GTI R5 superminis in the top five.
“I have been wanting to get back onto gravel for a while now,” said Greer, whose last appearance at the RSAC Scottish Rally was 2017 and ended with him needing to retire with mechanical troubles.
“As we were able to wrap up the Northern Ireland Rally Championship with a round to spare and our Irish Tarmac Rally Championship campaign not going as well as we hoped it would, it seemed like a good idea to do a handful of different events just for the fun of it,” he continued.
“Last month’s Kielder Forest Rally was the first time I competed on gravel in five years, and I really enjoyed it, so I picked the Scottish Rally as another to try, to get more comfortable on gravel again.
“I would be happy to finish around where I am seeded [sixth] as we are running the car in proper Rally2 specification meaning a smaller restrictor against a lot of cars running in non-homologated spec, so having the larger restrictor gives them a massive power advantage over us.
“It will be tough to try and mix it at the front of the field, but we will go and enjoy ourselves and see how we go.”
With Greer’s non-attendance at the Tyrone Stages Rally, it presents an opportunity for a number of drivers to taste success, including eight-time champion Derek McGarrity (Skoda Fabia R5) and Aaron McLaughlin (Volkswagen Polo GTI R5) as well as Gareth Sayers in his Ford Fiesta Rally2.
Comprising 40 competitive miles and 14 special stages using private roads owned by the Ministry of Defence, the local meeting is due to start on Saturday shortly after 9am and finish at 5.30pm.