Thursday, November 5, 2020 SPORT UH 51

MOTORSPORTEUROPEAN RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP

BY CHRIS CALDWELL

AARON Johnston and Oliver Solberg’slast two outings have been beset withmisfortune and the Fintona co-driver ishoping their luck will change in Hun-gary this weekend.

They will resume their EuropeanRally Championship title quest behindthe wheel of a Eurosol Racing SkodaFabia Rally2 Evo, hoping to bounceback from the last two disappointingresults.

Their unfortunate run started be-hind the wheel of their Volkswagen Po-

lo GTi R5 in which they suffered a me-chanical issue that ended their hopesin the previous round of the ERC inPortugal following a monumental ef-fort by their crew to basically rebuildthe car following a collision with a treeduring shakedown.

And last time out, their luck didn’timprove. In Italy, at Rally Sardegna,the pair were caught out by a smalljump which meant Solberg missed hisbraking point by a split second andtheir Skoda Fabia became beached, allbut ending their charge for World Ral-ly Championship points on that occa-

sion.“It’ll be a challenging weekend but

I’m looking forward to it and lookingforward to getting back into the Euro-pean Championship after a disappoint-ing weekend in Portugal after the fan-tastic work by the guys to get the carfixed and then the mechanical prob-lem,” Johnston said.

“That’s just part of rallying but hope-fully we have a little bit of a smootherevent this weekend.”

With neither of the young duo hav-ing competed at Rally Hungary before,they know they face a steep learning curve on the traditionally muddy and

slippery tarmac stages. But it’s a challenge they will relish as

they attempt to claw back some of the42 points lead Alexey Lakanuk cur-rently enjoys over them at the head ofthe ERC standings.

Solberg and Johnston, though, do re-tain a seven point advantage over Gre-gorie Munster in the Junior Champi-onship.

“The conditions won’t be easy butagain it will be a good experience andgood learning,” added 25-year-oldJohnston.

“It’s all about seat time and mileagebut of course we will try to get the bestresult we can, but we need to do all thestages, get through the rally and getthe experience if we ever go backthere, especially on a surface that Oliv-er doesn’t have that much experienceon.

“But of course, we are still in thefight for the overall championship, sowe have to think about that too. Wejust have to do our best and see whathappens.

“Looking at Hungary from previousyears and with it being at the time ofyear that it’s at, it’s always very wet

and muddy and slippery, so I think it’sthe smartest crew that will be the win-ners at the end of the weekend.

“It’s not just all about speed, youhave to be within the margin of risk. Ifyou have mud on the road or gravel orthings like that, you have to be smartand drive to the conditions.

“We’ll do our best to do that andmark it all down in the pace notes fromthe recce.”

After Hungary, the remainder ofJohnston and Solberg’s season re-mains a little up in the air due to theongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

The next round of the WRC at RallyYpres in Belgium has been cancelled,leaving the Monza event in Decemberthe likely finale of that series, while atpresent, Rally Islas Canarias and Sparemain the concluding rounds of theERC should they go ahead.

“You just have to be grateful forevery rally that is run for the rest of theyear because it is just so uncertain be-tween local governments and interna-tional travel,” Johnston said.

“We’ll give Hungary our best and af-ter that we’ll just have to see what waythe world is for moving forward.”

OMAGH’S Jake Johnston brought the cur-tain down on his first season in the IrishMinibike Championship in some style atNutts Corner where he sealedx a fourthplaced overall finish in the BamBam Class.

The 2020 Irish Minibike ChampionshipSeason concluded exactly as it began –with a BAM at Nutts Corner where neitherthe morning drizzle nor an oil spill stop-page could dampen the spirit of the pad-dock and the finale was everything itpromised to be – fast-paced, action-packed,down to the wire and mighty good craic!

The BamBammers took the honours ofopening proceedings at round one on July18th (the first motorsport event in Irelandfollowing lockdown) and albeit unplanned,and as if by fate, took the final flag at thesixth and final IMC event of 2020.

Going into the finale, The VW Audi Bitzsupported BamBam Class had a crownedchampion in Buster Sherman-Boyd, butthe race was still on for the remainingpodium placings.

Max Robinson, Jack Hamilton and AlfieFlynn had it all to play for with only a fewpoints separating the trio. Hamilton set avery fast pace from the offset, the clear

winner in all three races. In Race one, Sherman-Boyd and Flynn

battled hard for the runner-up spot in arace-long duel. While there was little toseparate the pair, just 0.5 seconds at theline, Sherman-Boyd just nabbed it. Flynnhas demonstrated great progression dur-ing his ‘Rookie’ season and has markedhimself a serious contender for 2021. Sixyear-old Max Robinson had a lonely racerunning fourth, just losing the tow of theduel in front.

In races two and three there was littlechange at the front however a fall forRobinson in race three saw Omagh’s JakeJohnston benefit with valuable points re-warding him with fourth overall on theday.

Tommy Ferris, Beau McCrory, RyanGlasgow, Rachel Hamilton and sister Emi-ly, Alyssa Curry, Cathal Casey and Shea El-liott all put in fantastic effort across thefield.

The controlled class has shown promisefor 2021 with no less than 18-point scorers.The Championship concluded with BusterSherman-Boyd on 145pts, Jack Hamiltonon 99pts and Alfie Flynn on 87pts.

IRISH MINIBIKE CHAMPIONSHIP

Omagh’s Jake seals top four finish

Johnston’s ‘Hungary’for a change of fortune

Aaron Johnston and Oliver Solberg hope to re-ignite their European Rally Championship title charge in Hungary this weekend.

Fintona’s Aaron Johnston is preparing to tackle Rally Hungary this coming weekend.

Omagh’s Jake Johnston in action on his TenTen BamBam machine at Nutts Corner.