by Geoff Mayes
MG Super 2000 Sport works driver Stuart Jones made history at the weekend on the
Jim Clark International Rally, the second round in the 2008 Tesco 99 Octane MSA British Rally Championship,
en-route to snatching second place overall on the very last stage.
The 23-year-old posted a number of fastest stage times in the BRC, to become the first person to do so with the new generation MG S2000 - and the first person to score a BRC fastest stage time with an MG since Tony Pond managed it back in 1986 with an MG 6r4.
Jones, along with co-driver Andy Bull, approached the opening loop of stages cautiously as a lack of budget had prevented a pre-event test and the first time he was able to drive the car on tarmac in anger had been at shakedown on Thursday night.
The first loop of stages saw him drop time as he was not 100 per cent confident with the set-up. At first service the MSD team made some changes to the car which transformed it as the young Welshman was immediately on the pace of the front runners.
With the car now working to his liking Jones put in the kind of performance that won him the Peugeot 206 Super Cup a few years ago and saw him take two fastest stage times as he clawed his way back up the leaderboard to end day one third overall in the BRC standings and 24 seconds behind David Higgins.
Jones began to hunt David down on the opening stage on a cool and breezy, but dry, Sunday morning, taking one second out of him. Another two seconds were deducted from the deficit on the next stage and a further three seconds on the stage before the mid-day service halt.
A repeat of SS14 saw Stuart post his best time of the weekend taking the stage win by 5.3 seconds but more importantly closing the deficit to Higgins to just 8.9 seconds.
Then, as he neared the end of the final stage he caught a glimpse of David Higgins ahead of him. Higgins had suffered transmission problems and Jones eventually hauled him in with a time that was over 50 seconds quicker, thus taking second overall and equalling his best ever BRC result.
