Photo Credit: Jakob Ebrey Photography One tenth of a second. One championship point. These are the statistics that are making Fredrik Ahlin's trip home to Sweden from the Isle of Man a nightmare. Rounds seven and eight of the 2017 Prestone MSA British Rally Championship did not disappoint. Fredrik Ahlin and Torstein Eriksen have appeared to have had the BRC under control for a number of events now. After two mechanical problems on the bounce for Osian Pryce, the poor start for Keith Cronin and the inconsistency of CA1 Sport team mate David Bogie, the Swede was almost in a class of one. Certainly on gravel, notching up three of the four event wins on the loose. Heading to the double-header on the Isle of Man that closed out the season, all Ahlin needed was a third and a second on the two legs to become the first Swedish British Rally Champion since 1983. And that was providing title rivals Keith Cronin and Mikie Galvie won both legs. However, given the Irish crew's form on the tarmac rounds this year, this was very likely. Storming to victories in both Ypres and at home on the Ulster Rally last month, Cronin had revitalised his dwindling championship hopes. Also in the frame: Matt Edwards. The Welshman's step up to the R5 this year has been impeccable, and he too still had a mathematical chance of becoming British Rally Champion, but the emphasis was on mathematical. Sure enough, Cronin was the one to beat as the action got underway in the challenging lanes of the Manx. He took the opening leg of the rally to notch up a third win of the season - drawing level with Ahlin on that score - despite a scare on SS7 that left his Fiesta R5 looking a little battered. Matt Edwards upset the form book by slotting in second ahead of Ahlin's Fabia; the Welshman's title dream now over but his performance excellent. Ahlin struggled for confidence in the slippery conditions with a gearbox issue compiling his woes. It therefore all came down to the final round and the final day of the season. And it was Edwards and co-driver Darren Garrod that were the ones looking the hungriest, eyeing up their first BRC win. Ahlin was struggling to keep up with the Fords, with his championship aspirations now resting on Edwards' performance. If Edwards beat Cronin, the title would be Ahlin's. But a win for Cronin would send the title to Ireland. Going into the final stage, Cronin's factory M-Sport car headed its Swift Rally Team rival by 9.5 seconds. The season had reached its crescendo. First through, Cronin wasn't sure if his performance would be good enough. His answer came in the form of Edwards' approaching Fiesta, who stopped the clocks 9.4 seconds faster than his rival, but it could've been more with Edwards' R5 cutting out at points in the final test that finished outside the famous TT grandstand. Luck of the Irish? Either way, 0.1 seconds was enough to hand Keith Cronin a fourth British Rally Championship title to the disbelief of Edwards who wanted the win and the dejection of Ahlin who was visibly upset when crossing the finish line. The man that many expected was destined to win had fallen short, by just one single point. Cronin's success cements him as one of the all time greats in BRC history. Four titles elevates him above Mark Higgins and level with Roger Clark, but incredibly all of Cronin's wins have come at the wheel of four different cars by four different manufactures. He won the 2009 title in a Mitsubishi Evo IX, 2010 in a Subaru Impreza, 2012 in a Citroen DS3 R3 and now 2017 in a Ford Fiesta R5. The other real winner from the weekend was M-Sport. The Skoda Fabia R5 has been considered the best all round R5 package for a while now, and that was being proved at the start of the year with the Czech machine winning four of the first five rounds. But since the Evo 2 package came out, it has been a different story. From Ypres onwards, the only event Keith Cronin didn't win was the Nicky Grist Stages, and Osian Pryce's similar car was in a commanding position before retiring with a fuel issue. Couple this with the car's recent performances in WRC2 and Matt Edwards' sublime second half of the year, it is clear that M-Sport have made progress with their R5 model. As for Ahlin, how he will be trying to forget the RSAC Scottish Rally where he retired from second place on the final stage with a punctured radiator. Had he come second or beaten home hero David Bogie there, the complexion of the championship could have been very different. But as you'll often hear drivers say: "that's rallying." Photo Credit: Jakob Ebrey Photography The fight to become Prestone Motorsport News British Junior Rally Champion was equally as exciting on the Manx International Rally, with Callum Devine (Opel ADAM R2), William Creighton (Peugeot 208 R2) and Oscar Solberg (Ford Fiesta R2T) all heading to the island with a shot at the title and the £30,000 prize fund that went with it. Much like the overall honours, the man that won was the man who started round seven of eight second place in the standings. The battle ebbed and flowed, but Callum Devine would ultimately rise to the top with impressive, controlled driving with William Creighton suffering with a puncture on the second day. Either would have been a deserving champion, with both pushing each other hard all year. The pace of the Juniors has been phenomenal all year; let's hope Devine can now prove that more effectively than Rob Duggan has this year with DMACK's budgetary issues. Thanks to Cronin and Devine, the British Rally Championship belongs to Ireland. It will be fascinating to see who returns next year; 2018 has a lot to live up to. Photo Credit: Jakob Ebrey Photography
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Photo Credit: American Rally Association (ARA) [Alex Wong] Thirteen major rally championships including a monumental seven American titles and one back home in Britain, Manxman David Higgins has had a very successful career. At 44, Higgins is still as competitive as ever, and has enjoyed fruitful relationships with many manufacturers such as Peugeot, Mitsubishi and most famously Subaru. Despite all this success, 2017 was to be a year of disappointment after a climactic championship battle. Heading into the season, Higgins hadn't been beaten in America since 2011, and was looking to make it seven titles in a row and eight in total in his Subaru Rally Team USA Impreza. After a season long battle with team mate Travis Pastrana, it all came down to the penultimate stage of the championship, re-branded the ARA Championship. Higgins struck a chicane on the first of the two runs through the super-special that concluded the Muscatell Ojibwe Forests Rally. This handed him a 15 second penalty, and due to the tiebreak rule in place that meant it all came down to finishing positions on every stage across the season, Pastrana denied Higgins and co-driver Craig Drew the chance of lifting the championship trophy. "It was a very disappointing way to end the season," Higgins admitted. "We won the same amount of events, I led the series from start to finish on the same amount of points and had almost double the amount of stage wins across the season. It was only the strange tiebreak rule that was invented just before the last round that stopped us taking the championship. "The rally didn't start well as there was a miscommunication in the team which led to us being on the wrong tyres for the first loop, but worse still we hit a rock on stage 1 which broke a wheel. This meant we had already used five of our 10 allocated tyres for the event with over 130 miles left to run. "We also lost two minutes on another stage when a GoPro got stuck in the wiper blades so we had to stop and clear the windscreen. The rest of the rally was great with some very big stage wins, more than a second per mile faster than Travis in the wet conditions." Higgins won three rallies across the six round series, and showed fantastic pace on all six. But small, niggling issues ultimately prevented him from taking the title with the new tiebreak rule in place. "This year has been tough," he said. "We have had some small issues that didn't affect our overall results, but lost us time on individual stages which affected our stage position and that's what it all came down to with the tie break rule. For example we had broken the turbo pipe on two super specials less than a mile long, lost 20 seconds and finished the stage down in 29th, so we lost 28 points to Travis in there yet still won the rally." Rallying isn't the main sport you think of when it comes to America, nor is it something that's particularly well known in the UK. Who better to give us a guide than a man who races there year after year? "Every events is very different and I guess you can expect that given the size of the country," Higgins explained. "I love the way events are a little more old school with lots of night stages, but for some reason this year that's not been the case. I do hope they get back to that. "As for competition it's a hard one to judge, as the rules allow 'open' class cars it's hard to know what the competitors' cars are like compared to ours. There definitely isn't a huge depth in the field, so if you have a big problem the time gap back to say fourth or fifth is big enough that you don't drop too far down the order. We are also in a good position that we are in the best team that do it properly. When we've had drivers like Bryan Bouffier over, they have been shocked with the pace of the front guys. Ultimately we need more manufacturers like Subaru for it to grow again. "The car is amazing, just like the full WRC car, but this year they added a weight penalty to our cars and reduced the power of the turbo so that took a lot of fun and the driving skill out of the car. It also gave crews a great beating as the weight meant we bottomed out over bumps and crests much more so all our backs and necks took a fair battering." Battering or no battering, Higgins is more than likely returning to the United States once again next year, with he and Subaru working towards a new long term deal. "My contract is up at the end of the year but they do have an option for me in 2018, and we are also working on a longer term deal. So I guess it's safe to say I'll be with the team again in the USA, but we are unsure of the exact programme just now." To many of us of a certain age, David Higgins is a name of nostalgia. Not least because his brother competed in the British Rally Championship too and won it thrice, David was on the scene for a while and clinched the BRC title in 2004 driving a Hyundai Accent WRC after a year long battle with the then defending champion Jonny Milner. But what does the Manxman who lives in Wales think of the BRC in its current guise? "I think it's going the right way," Higgins said. "There's some good battles and lots of R5 cars which is nice to see. I find the events are still a shadow of their former selves though as they aren't nearly as long, but that's all down to cost. "Ideally it also needs some factory teams or supported drives as at the moment it's all down to who can find budget for it. And then if you find the budget to compete you have to justify it. Back in the day it was worth doing to get noticed by the works teams as there were always drives available." The last time we saw Higgins rallying on UK soil was Wales Rally GB 2015 (pictured above). He ran the livery that donned Colin McRae's Group A Impreza 20 years beforehand when he won the World Championship. A return like his brother's on the Manx lnternational last year seems unlikely however. "There is nothing in the pipeline," he explains, "and a return is hard for me as I am contracted to Subaru and they don't have a car that fits with the BRC at the moment. Maybe the RAC Rally in a historic Legacy... "Looking back on my career, I don't really have any special moments that I'm most proud of as every season has its own challenges and I always give 100% on every event I do. Maybe when I stop competing I will look back and have more of an idea but for now my eyes are firmly fixed on the future." And not just on his own future. David is a karting champion in his own right, and now his daughter Alicia and son Matthew are following in those footsteps. "I am now getting a lot of satisfaction from watching and helping my kids Alicia and Matthew who are both doing very well in kart racing. I now start to get a picture of what Mark and I put our parents through over the last god knows how many years!" I would like to say a special thank you to David Higgins for agreeing to this and taking the time to answer my questions. I grew up as a fan of rallying when he was competing in the British Rally Championship making this rather surreal for me! Keep an eye on This Is Rally for more interviews, previews and reviews from the world of rallying.
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BRITISH RALLYINGArticles covering rally in Britain, looking at the MSA BRC Archives
September 2017
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