Junior Rallying's Tom Clark finished 36th overall and tenth in the two wheel-drive category of the Kalnanuiza Rally last weekend, only his second event in Latvia driving to his own pace notes.
14 year-old Clark and co-driver Aggie Foster enjoyed what Junior Rallying manager, Gemma Price, described as ‘an excellent run'. Despite the beginnings of a cold, Clark adopted a mature approach to the technical event and arrived at the finish as the tenth-placed two-wheel drive car.
The second round of the RallySprint championship was also Clark and Foster's second in Latvia. However, while their first, last month's Kekava Rally was a relatively easy introduction, the Kalnanuiza event posed much more of a challenge, particularly for the pace notes.
The event featured far more technical stages, including blind corners on or following crests and gave a more representative taste of the nature of the Latvian stages. As a result, Clark's pace notes for this event were more complex than his first event but as Price explains, this forms one of the cornerstones of the Junior Rallying proposition.
“Developing a pace note system to suit a variety of stage conditions is crucial to progressing as a driver. It's all part of the learning process and exactly what we went through with Tom Cave in Latvia last year,” she explained.
In addition to being on hand to offer guidance and support, Price and the Junior Rallying team carefully monitored Tom's physical performance, including his fluid intake, as the temperatures were in the mid 20°Cs. The event also saw a 13.5Km stage, relatively long for the RallySprint championship and making up almost a quarter of the total competitive distance for the event.
“We had no problems with the car this weekend,” said Clark. “We had a few moments, particularly on some of the corners over crests, but we managed to hold it together. The long stage was pretty challenging but also, extremely satisfying to complete a big test like that.”
![Tom Clark/Aggie Foster in action on the Kekava Rally [Pic credit: Junior Rallying]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/436719.jpg)
