Rautenbach, who is co-driven by previous British Championship winning co-driver David Senior, has had two strong runs on tarmac driving a Renault Clio S1600 in this years JWRC, including a podium finish on the Rally of Corsica and hopes to go well this weekend in the Geoff Jones Motorsport-run Subaru Impreza that he is using for his British campaign.
Whilst some of the championship contenders have been testing extensively, and a few have gone across to Ireland to fine tune their cars, Stephen Petch Junior travelled to Belgium to compete in the Ypres Rally where, despite a couple of punctures, he was pleased to be on the pace of some of Europe’s quickest drivers.
Young Matt Beebe, meanwhile, contested the two-day 100 mile Rally of the Midlands in an effort to find more speed from his little MG ZR160 and his fourth overall on the rally has given him the confidence boost he needs as he tries to close the gap to the vastly experienced Justin Dale in the battle for R3 class honours.
The 2006
Jim Clark Rally also plays host to rounds of both the Irish Tarmac Rally championship and the British Tarmac Championship, meaning that spectators will still get to witness World Rally Cars being driven at speed down the narrow country lanes. The rally is also round three of the 2006 Tesco 99 Octane 'Stars of the Future' championship and with two different winners from the first two gravel rounds the contenders will be going all out as the championship reaches its half way mark.
The 2006 Jim Clark International Rally begins on Friday afternoon at 3:30pm from Kelso Race course and finishes on Saturday afternoon, after 150 high speed stage miles back in Kelso, with the first car expected back at around 6pm.
