Meeke ready for Mini challengeposted in RSCOT12 | 10 | 2010
THE MAN who dominated last year's Intercontinental Rally Championship and inaugural RallyScotland, Colin McRae protege Kris Meeke, returns to Scotland tomorrow already with one eye on his switch to the World Rally Championship with Mini.
The Northern Irishman, who learned much of his trade with McRae when he spent time at the former world rally champ's Lanark base, will again contest RallyScotland in his Peugeot 207 S2000.
But Meeke, whose 2010 IRC hopes have already disappeared due to a succession of crashes and technical problems, admitted today his switch to Mini will be the biggest challenge of his career to date.
"I just can't wait to get on with the job," Meeke, whose WRC Mini Countryman will be prepared by Prodrive, the Banbury-based team which led McRae to his world crown with Subaru in 1995, said.
"It's a dream come true, but I haven't really had the time to digest the whole thing yet. One of the things I'm so impressed with is the way the team is going about whole project," Meeke, who has already tested the car in Portugal, continued.
"Taking next year as the development year is exactly the right thing to do. Doing it this way makes a lot of sense: there's no panic; we do the test, then the event, then the test. It's the best way."
And Meeke, who was fastest at the end of last year's RallyScotland but eventually lost the win thanks to a minor technical error by his team, admits the WRC represents another step up.
"The IRC certainly has it's place," he continued, "but the WRC is the pinnacle of the sport and I'm going to have a learning curve to flatten next year."
Meeke meanwhile will tomorrow prepare for the two-day recce of the RallyScotland stages which wind their way through Perthshire and the Trossachs.
The three-day rally, which finishes at Stirling Castle on Sunday and will be broadcast live by Eurosport to millions of viewers in 70 countries, gets underway at Scone Palace on Friday evening.
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Jim McGill