2007 Fiesta SportingTrophy International series winner Barry Clark will compete on three rounds in this year's
FIA World Rally Championship in a latest spec Ford Focus RS WRC car.
Clark gets one outing for free, as part of his reward for winning the FSTi series last season and on the back of that he has managed to acquire additional funding to compete on two further events.
The deal, which has been put together through the support of Scottish commercial car dealer Clark Commercials, will see him participate in an M-Sport-run Ford on the Rally of Turkey in June, followed by the Rallye de France-Tour de Corse in October and the Wales Rally GB in December, the Scotsman's 'home' event and the one he has the most experience of in the WRC.
Whether or not he will be nominated to score points for the Munchi's Ford WRT, as has been rumoured, is not yet clear - although the events in Corsica and GB are not apart of the Argentine outfits ten-event programme.
"To have such a fantastic opportunity this year is a dream come true for me," said the 25-year-old. "M-Sport have offered me an amazing prize for winning the Fiesta championship last year and, as a result of this, I have managed to gain further sponsorship to compete on three great events this year in what I believe to be the best car in the WRC.
"This is the opportunity I've been working towards obtaining in order to kick start my professional rally career and I know the next few months will need to be spent working extremely hard on all areas of my rallying."
In conjunction with this announcement the organisers of the FSTi series also confirmed that six events in the WRC will count towards the championship this season - one less than in 2007. The events that will qualify for the 2008 FSTi calendar are the Rally d'Italia Sardegna, the Rally of Turkey, the Neste Oil Rally Finland, the ADAC Rallye Deutschland, the Rally Espana de Catalunya and Wales Rally GB.
