Harris, Garrod round two preview

Harris & Garrod ready for tough tarmac test.

Young Londoners Mike Harris Junior and Ben Garrod are looking forward to the forthcoming Jim Clark 'stars' Rally after impressing greatly on their British Rally Championship debut. The duo won the first round by quite a dominant margin on the Pirelli National Rally in March.

Mike and Ben, who are contesting the 'stars' category of the BRC in a Rallyschool.co.uk Citroen C2, travelled to Carlisle with no gravel testing in the car. After a cautious start to the event the pair were surprised to see that they were on the pace of the leaders at the mid day service. A strong push in the afternoon saw everything go their way, with the pair returning to Carlisle as the victors.

To be fair the Pirelli result was far more than we had expected! The car ran well all day, thanks to John and the boys at Rally school. Both Ben and I are really chuffed with our performance on the Pirelli.

Despite having never contested the South Scotland event Mike and Ben competed on the Manx International last year in a Peugeot 206 so have an idea of the difference in driving techniques required on tarmac. The pair are confident of a quick start and are hoping to build on their highly successful start to the year.

We are both really looking forward to the event and running first on the road gives us an advantage as we can't be held up by any cars and also shows we are the guys to beat-- fingers crossed this is the case!

The 2007 Jim Clark 'stars' Rally early on Saturday morning and ends after a long and intense day of rallying along closed public rounds around the home of Jim Clark, in South Scotland. The ceremonial finish will be back in Kelso late in the afternoon.

-credit: geoff mayes