Carlisle: Jonny Greer event summary

Carryduff's Jonny Greer Moves into British Rally Championship Lead!

For Carryduff's Jonny Greer, after two rounds of the Dulux Trade MSA British Rally Championship (BRC) he's in a dream position, as the leader of Britain's premier rally series. "I wasn't really expecting to be in this position, but it's a nice position to be in for sure" quipped the young engineer, who works in the family David Greer Motorsport business, preparing top class rally machines.

After a fifth place on round one, the Bulldog Rally, Jonny and Welsh co- driver Dai Roberts eventual superb second overall finish on the weekend's Pirelli International Rally, gives them a promising six point advantage in the BRC. Coupled to this the result also clinched Jonny his second victory on the Mitsubishi Ralliart Evolution Challenge, and he also leads this one make series. Like many on the tough Kielder forest stages of the Pirelli International he battled through a few problems, but the DGM run Lancer Evo 9 survived the rigours of the two day International to record a second place overall finish behind British rally legend Gwyndaf Evans.

"The first night was tricky. There was a lot of dust hanging, and we were about tenth on the road, so it was thick in places. Actually the first night wasn't so easy, we had a worrying noise in the back of the car on the second stage, which turned out thankfully to be just a jammed stone, but on the third test we dropped 10-15 seconds with a broken gearbox. The team did a great job and changed the box in less than the 40 minutes allowed at the night-time service, so we were ready to go on Saturday."

At the end of the first night Jonny and Dai lay 7th overall, just ahead of former British Champion Mark Higgins, and behind Evo Challenge rival, Norwegian Daniel Sigguarson, Alastair Fisher and fourth placed Dave Weston Jnr who was 40 seconds in front. "It was a case of starting all over again on Saturday, and our aim was to have a go at catching up with Dave Weston. We had some good times, and had the gap down to 17 seconds going into the last loop, before Dave went off the road on the first stage of the last loop. The car was going well. We had done a wee test before hand and played with the centre diff and we have been working on our suspension, so we were happy with the car."

By stage 10 with just two more to go the Carryduff Forklift Lancer lay fourth overall, just over 2 minutes behind rally leader Keith Cronin, but the last stage was to provide a couple of dramas.

"Really we were in no man's land at that stage. The three guys ahead of us were still battling a bit to see who could win the rally, but I was just glad we weren't heading into that last stage having to race to the end, as it was by far the roughest stage of the rally, and an easy one to get punctures on. We got a bit of a shock however to see rally leader Keith Cronin parked off the road, and realised we had moved up to third, then when we got to the end of the stage, we took a second glance at the timing board. Craig Breen had dropped a lot of time with a puncture and we realised that we had taken second place! It was quite unexpected and unexpected that we are actually leading the BRC at this stage!" A fast clean and tidy drive had ensured that Jonny kept free of punctures and he scored his highest BRC finish in second place, a great result for the hard working DGM team.

The next round of the BRC is the tarmac Jim Clark Rally, but at the moment Jonny is busy in the work shop preparing his BOTT Equipment backed Lancer Evo 9 for this weekend's Killarney Rally of the Lakes. "We are now changing everything into tarmac specification before Killarney, and it will help as a test before the Jim Clark. I'm looking forward to doing the event, especially driving stages like Molls Gap, and we are also registered for the Irish Tarmac Championship." Preparation of rally cars also has to be a useful skill for any rally championship leader to have. "I enjoy working on the cars, and for sure it gives you a better knowledge of how the car works, and if something's wrong it helps to pin-point where the problem is."

With Keith Cronin's superb victory on the BRC in 2009, it's fitting that another Irish driver is now leading this high profile rally series, and the amiable Carryduff driver aims to try his utmost to hold onto that coveted position.

-source: dgm sport team