Garry Pearson Out to Impress at Scottish Rally Championship Opener

Since last month’s Snowman Rally was unfortunately cancelled, this weekend’s Border Counties Rally has become the de facto season opener for the RAVENOL partnered Scottish Rally Championship. Within its ranks, champion contender Garry Pearson, who is also partnered by RAVENOL, will be seeking to make his mark and bring home maximum points on his first rally.

The rally is based in Jedburgh, but the cars will be regularly dipping across the border with stages run in the Kielder Forest and the service park at the Greenside car park at Kielder Waterside. In total there will be 6 stages covering 42 competitive miles on gravel stages.

All the action from the stages will be streamed live throughout the on Facebook, with the support of Royal Aero. Drivers’ stage times and end-of-stage interviews will be instantly available, as well as some in-stage footage.

In particular, we are looking forwards to seeing our new Scottish Rally partner, Garry Pearson, in action on the exciting forest stages. The Duns based driver will be out to impress on his local rally, kick starting his campaign in his Ford Fiesta R5 alongside co-driver Dale Bowen.

“I’m delighted to welcome RAVENOL on board as a technical partner in 2019,” Garry said. “They are very much a well-respected worldwide brand so its great to have their support during my SRC campaign and their products will undoubtedly give us the edge this season.

Since the Snowman was cancelled, Garry has been using the extra time to get in some pre-event testing done in the Fiesta. However, he reckons he may face some stiff opposition once his fellow competitors find their feet on the Kielder Forest gravel, and believes the Border could well be one of the toughest challenges of the season and that he will need to dig out every ounce of experience he has in order to win.

“I think having the Border Counties as the new first round is a bit more of a leveller really and will allow us to see where we are and ultimately where we need to be much earlier on,” he said. “There are some heavy-hitters on the entry list and many past champions too, so it won’t be an easy task being out front on Saturday.

“I remember this event well and historically I’ve always gone well in the Borders. Its always been a close rally and I tied on times with Jock (Armstrong) in 2016, only losing out on the tie-break so I know I`m capable. But then when you look at the rest of the top ten, I need to keep focused. It’s a long season and the points will be very valuable so we will have to balance the desire for being out front and a good score.”

We wish Garry all the best of luck and look forward to seeing how he and the other competitors get on, on the RAVENOL partnered Scottish Rally Championship opening round.