Craig and the team report that taking part in his home Club Forestry Rally proved to be a very productive outing. After completing nearly 70 Kms of gravel stages in the Wm. Loughman forestry Rally Craig now feels he has a good package looking forward to the Bulldog International on the 27th of March.
Craig’s comments after the event:
“I’m very pleased with today’s work. Using the forestry rally gave the test session a competitive edge and comparing my times with that of the Mitsubishi group N cars gave us a benchmark. I started slowly on the first stage and was five seconds down on Pat O’Connell but form that point forward I picked up my pace. If this were a typical test session we would be using the same length of stage for the full day but by taking part in the rally we only repeated two stages. One of these was the 20km’s of Curteen. Over the first run we set a good time but on the second run I pushed hard and cut 21 seconds off our previous time. The variation of all the stages gave us a grounding looking ahead to the Bulldog and the only major change I can foresee is the weather.”
The team now heads to Claremorris, Co. Mayo next weekend for the Mayo Stages. The event being held next Sunday the 14th is the second round of the Dunlop National Tarmac Championship. Craig will use the one day rally as a tarmac test in preparation
Craig: “After testing this weekend on gravel, I’m now looking forward to getting a comprehensive tarmac setup in place for the Circuit of Ireland. The stages on the Circuit will have different characteristics from those of Galway, so it will be important to (A) Get some more time in the car on tarmac and (B) nail down a setup that will keep our championship aspirations going”