In the first of a series of columns for Crash.net, rising young rallying star and reigning British Rally Championship Class R3 Champion Matt Beebe tells us how he is looking forward to the start of the 2007 campaign this weekend – on the back of an encouraging pre-season warm-up last month…
Four weeks ago we competed on the Border Counties Rally, which is a round of the Hankook MSA Gravel Rally Championship. We chose it to get some practice through the notorious Kielder Forest ahead of this weekend’s Pirelli International Rally, and because it takes place on the same sort of terrain.
It was a really good build-up to the season. We did it in the m3motorsport-run MG ZR160 I drove in 2006 to try out the new Pirelli tyres we have to use in the BRC this year. They are really stable at high speed and worked very well. They gave me a lot of confidence to push through Kielder, and you certainly need confidence there! It was a positive start.
The only problem we had was on stage two when the dampers went off – by the end of the stage the little MG was bouncing on the springs all over the place like a kangaroo! There were some pretty big ruts near the flying finish and we crossed the line with the rear of the car well up in the air – it must have looked very spectacular! That made things very interesting, but fortunately it didn’t cost us too much time and we managed to get away with it, and apart from that she ran really well all day.
We finished the event as first two-wheel drive home and first in N3 as well. We also beat a Hyundai World Rally car driven by Harry Dodd, which I think proved we were pushing pretty hard.
Being in the BRC last year and up against international opposition had made it hard for me to gauge my true pace. The Scottish championship is made up of a number of amateur drivers and we were able to beat all of them, which gave us a lot of confidence. Although we are not quite on the pace of the international drivers just yet, we are getting quicker all the while and setting some good times.
![Matt Beebe [Pic credit: Geoff Mayes Media - www.geoffmayesmedia.com]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/303518.jpg)
