This weekend we head to Antrim for the 5th round of the BRC. This will probably be the only time this year that Mark Higgins and myself will both be in unknown territory, as nearly all of the stages are new to the rally. It will be a level playing field as far as local knowledge is concerned. 

Ulster is always a very demanding rally and although I have done it only once before, I really enjoyed it. That was last year of course when Greg and myself were doing the UK Evo Challenge. We were fastest Evo competitor on all 16 stages and won that category by over 4 minutes which was probably why I enjoyed it so much.
This year, Greg and myself are heading up on Wednesday afternoon and we can sign on for recce Wednesday evening. Then the plan is to relax and get a good nights sleep as we have seven stages to recce on Thursday. We will have an early breakfast and begin Recce at 8am. As usual we will do a 2 pass recce but as there is a lot of road mileage, this will take some time. By the time we have recce finished, the TTEC team will have arrived and put the car through mechanical scrutiny and will have got the in-car camers fitted. We usually have at least two cameras in the car! We will then have a team meeting to discuss how recce went and what the weather forecast is like etc.
The weather could have a major bearing on the result of this rally. This is because of all the road mileage. When the stages are so far from service and so far from each other, there could be heavy rain on one stage whilst the following one could be basking in sunshine. We will be getting information back from the stages in relation to the weather and this should mean that we make the correct tyre choices.
On Friday morning we will probably have a run or two over the official shakedown stage before the ceremonial start at 2.30pm in Antrim town centre.
Then the action starts and we have six stages on Friday evening with 46 stage miles and 146 road miles. Eight more stages on Saturday with 80 stage miles and 198 road miles. I'm looking forward to an enjoyable weekend.
Greenlight Television, the company that produces the British Rally Championship coverage for Sky Sports called to Ballylickey today (Tuesday) and they will be producing a special feature on Cronin Motorsport which is to be included in the Ulster Rally coverage. This can be seen on Sky Sports Extra on Monday at 8pm and on Sky Sports 3 at 11pm