Tom Cave will begin his 2008 rally campaign in earnest next weekend, as he tackles the second round of the 2008 Latvian National Rally Championship, the Talsi Rally.
While the 16 year-old has already contested the event once before in 2007 and is looking forward to this year's edition, he predicts a tough and challenging rally, which takes place after he begins to take his GCSEs.
The UK's first minor to compete in international rallying has already completed the pre-event recce, thanks to a special dispensation form the Latvian Automobile Federation. This is because the recce for other competitors takes place on the Thursday and Friday preceding the weekend event and Tom is unable to take time off from his studies, at the most crucial time in his education so far.
The Talsi Rally is the second round of the 2008 Latvian national series and Cave missed the opening round due to a sports injury. However, he competed on the recent Rally Kekava, a round of the Latvian RallySprint series, as a final preparation for his national campaign. He finished that event second in class and 19th overall, fulfilling his objective of learning his new-for-2008 Group N Ford Fiesta ST and establishing a base set-up for Talsi.
He is already familiar with next weekend's event, having contested it in 2007. However, he will be hoping for more success this year. On his first excursion, he went off the road and got his MG ZR beached on a tree stump and despite the efforts of determined Latvian rally spectators, was unable to get back on the road before running out of time.
He also admits that he was unprepared for the challenges that the event would pose. High temperatures, long stages with changing nature and a full two days of competition took their toll on the-then 15 year-old. However, Tom has developed a physical fitness regime with the objective of becoming stronger and building his endurance, both physically and mentally, to cope with exactly these kind of conditions.
![Tom Cave in action on the 2008 Rally Kekava. [Pic credit: Arturs Tinte, www.lifemirror.lv]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/436708.jpg)
