Fivemiletown and Sweden to take centre ‘stage’

YOU’RE probably more likely to hear sleigh bells in the forests around Fivemiletown this morning than roaring rally car engines, but that will all change on Saturday when the Samsonas Fivemiletown Rally gets underway.

There are around 80 crews champing at the bit to get the first round of the NI Gravel Challenge underway and there is quality throughout.

The event could be won by any of the top 10 seeds and beyond. Desi Henry goes into the rally as slight favourite from Dromore’s Cathan McCourt, whose brother Conor is seeded seventh.

Between the McCourt siblings are Greencastle’s Mark Donnelly, Ballygawley’s Vivian Hamill, Victoria Bridge’s Jason Mitchell and Omagh’s Gareth Mimnagh, while completing the top 10 are Castlederg’s Gareth Sayers, Portglenone’s Niall Henry and Strabane’s Martin Cairns.

The two-wheel drive side of things promises to be equally as exciting with David Condell and David Crossen up against local favourites like Donaghmore’s Adrian Hetherington, Moy’s Frank Kelly and Fivemiletown’s Shane McGirr among others.

The Omagh Motor Club-organised event has attracted a mouth-watering entry list that is sure to deliver a thrilling day’s action on the stages…although most involved will be hoping that the snow has gone before then.

Two other local competitors, however, are hoping for snow, more snow and plenty of ice!

Aaron Johnston and Jon Armstrong are both at Rally Sweden this weekend, with the former competing alongside Takamoto Katsuta in their Toyota Gazoo Racing Team Next Generation Rally1 Yaris in the top flight of the World Rally Championship, while the latter gets his Junior WRC campaign underway with Brian Hoy on the notes in their Rally3 Ford Fiesta.

Johnston is relishing the unique set of challenges that the only winter round of the World Rally Championship will throw up at Rally Sweden, which gets underway this morning [Thursday] with shakedown.

In 2020 and 2021, a lack of snow and ice made Rally Sweden a bit of a lottery as the stages became more like you would find closer to home, with the wet gravel coming through. That caused the winter tyres to deteriorate much more quickly and made the event more difficult to navigate.

Because of those issues, the organisers have moved the rally further north and Johnston is delighted that the true definition of a winter rally will take place this coming weekend.

“There is an awful lot of snow up in the region where the rally is being run, so the conditions are very, very good,” he beamed.

“It will be, compared to the last two Rally Sweden’s that we have done, it will be the best for winter conditions, so I’m looking forward to the rally.

“It’s still  a surface that is quite new to me. I’ve only done seven or eight winter events and it’s a surface that I really do enjoy. I guess it’s relatively new to me and the novelty is still there and the thoughts of going so fast on roads you can barely stand up on are quite surreal.

“It’s a great feeling when you’re in these cars and on these roads with huge snow banks and full ice. It’s what rallying is all about.”

Having finished eighth at the season-opening Rallye Monte Carlo last month, which was the first in the new Rally1 hybrid WRC cars, Johnston and driver, Takamoto Katsuta are hoping for another finish inside the top 10.

At Monte, the pair were up as high as fifth and posted some stellar stage times before they got stuck in a ditch for 13 minutes after sliding wide on an icy corner. And Johnston hopes they can bring that pace to Sweden in order to achieve another positive result for Toyota Gazoo Racing Team Next Generation in their Rally1 Yaris.

However, the Tyrone man knows that won’t be easy considering their early place on the road.

“With [Sebastien] Loeb and [Sebastien] Ogier not being there we’re relatively early on the road, we’re going to be running fifth and with the amount of snow there will be a massive disadvantage for cleaning,” he explained.

“For sure, it will be worse for Kalle [Rovanpera, their Toyota team-mate] running first and Craig [Breen, M-Sport] running second, but even at fifth on the road will be quite loose compared to the guys that are running ninth, tenth or 11th on the road.

“So we have to be realistic and the goal is to finish the rally and be competitive and I think if we’re in a similar situation as we were in Monaco, running fifth, sixth or something like that then we’ll be very happy considering the first day.”

And Armstrong returns to the Junior World Rally Championship in 2022 bidding to go one better than his runner-up finish last year.

Rally Sweden kick-starts Junior WRC’s latest five-round series on its unique high-speed snow-surface stages. The 19-stage rally runs between tomorrow (Friday) to Sunday with today’s (Thursday’s) short shakedown preceding the competitive action.

Armstrong narrowly missed out on the Junior WRC title in 2021 after winning two of the championship’s five rounds. He’s aiming for success this time around but with plenty of new scenarios in Sweden; smooth and steady is perhaps the sensible approach.

“I think Sweden is going to be a tough task,” admitted Armstrong, who will be co-driven by fellow Fermanagh man, Brian Hoy in 2022. “

He continued: “The main thing is to enjoy it, get into a good rhythm from the start, make sure I am happy with my pacenotes, and start committing to those as the event goes on.

“I think if I can get a podium in Sweden then that would be a great result.”

Rally Sweden is based in Umea for the first time this year. The winter rally has moved 500 kilometres further north from its usual Karlstad base in the hunt for more predictable snow conditions.

And it’s those conditions that could hurt Armstrong’s challenge at round one, with his Nordic rivals, defending Junior WRC champion Sami Pajari and Lauri Joona well practiced on snow and ice.

And with no testing under his belt and after a huge crash ended his participation in the event and the season in 2020, he knows he will be up against it early on this coming weekend.

“I’ve been trying to prepare the best I can, looking over videos of the stages and doing some simulator work,” explained the 2018 eSport World Rally champion.

“But it will be interesting to see what it will be like when I get out onto shakedown for the first time.

“I don’t think [2020] bothers me too much. As long as I’ve leaned from it it’s probably not a bad thing that it’s in my mind somewhere so I know not to do the same thing again.

“But that was a pacenote issue, so long as I know my pacenotes are correct that won’t be an issue, unlike my lack of time in those conditions, which could potentially hamper me more than if it was a gravel or a tarmac rally.

“You’d be able to get into the rhythm a bit quicker but you just never know. Let’s see what it’s like in the recce and what it’s like in shakedown because you’ll get a pretty good idea if you’re in a good zone by the end of shakedown and we’ll take it from there.

“But I think it’s going to be difficult to get a win against the Scandanavians but if I can get a podium that would be nice.

“I’m trying not to put too much pressure on myself so I can enjoy it.”

Junior WRC moves to four-wheel-drive machinery for the first time in its 20-year history. Armstrong will drive M-Sport Poland’s Ford Fiesta Rally3 car rather than last year’s front-wheel-drive Rally4 equivalent.

The Kesh driver has some experience of the car. He won the European Rally Championship’s Junior category in a Rally3 Fiesta on last year’s Rally Poland.

Rally Sweden’s snow will be the first of three unique surfaces that Junior WRC crews are set to tackle in 2022. Croatia Rally provides asphalt action in April before Portugal, Estonia, and Greece host three gravel events between May and September.