How cool is this? –30 ºC… that’s how cool!
After competing on 7 championship rounds of the Peugeot 205 Challenge, (incidentally the same championship that both British World Rally Champions Colin McRae and Richard Burns competed in early in their careers), I have been given a great opportunity to compete in the Peugeot 1.9 Scholarship. Myself and a number of other competitors from the Peugeot 205 Challenge will be following the guidance of Kev Furber, an ex-professional works team driver for Peugeot.
I am really looking forward to using this opportunity to learn all I can and further developing my rallying skills in 2004. As part of the Peugeot 1.9 Scholarship I will be taking part in a week’s Rally Tuition in of all places Sweden. Five times Swedish Rally Champion Hakan Erikson, will be passing on the knowledge of full on rallying and the secrets to win. The tuition will take place on a frozen lake, yes a frozen lake in North Sweden. With a temperature of -30ºC at this time of year this gives the perfect environment to learn sideways control and mastering left foot braking.
Last year I took part in a Rally School Day at Bill Gwynne's Rally School. It was being filmed for a "behind the scenes of Rallying" series for Granada's Men & Motors. I was invited to take part for the angle of an up and coming Rally Driver on the British Rallying scene. However I unfortunately caused a minor technical hitch to the filming when I broke the gearbox in rally-school's Magical Nissan Micra after only a few laps on the gravel, doh! The programme was scheduled to be broadcast at the end of January, hopefully some of you may have seen it.
So here’s to a good 2004 and hopefully my major mission to raise the financial support to compete in the 2004 Scholarship may come to something.
Stefan Davis www.205scholarship.com www.the205challenge.com