Although on his maiden outing on the Scottish Borders for this event, much was expected of the young man that leads the 2009 BRC as the championship made the transition from Gravel to Tarmac for the first of three such events. He certainly did not disappoint, as he was the fastest BRC competitor on 12 of the 17 stages.

Having decided beforehand that the championship would take priority over the rally, Keith started out fairly cautiously. He was second fastest on the opening stage, some 4.8 seconds behind Mark Higgins, with Scot David Bogie next up a further 6.3 seconds behind the Corkman. On the second stage, however, he suffered a front puncture about 2 miles into the twelve mile test and completed the stage 26th, dropping about 1m50s and dropping down the leaderboard from 2nd to 9th. Bogie meanwhile departed the fray, as he crashed out.

At this point all thoughts of a famous third successive victory were well and truly pushed aside. He lost out to Higgins again on the first run through the streets of Duns to lie 1m56s behind him after 3 stages. On the second run through the town, the Ballylickey youngster beat his championship rival by a 1.8 second margin and so began a spirited comeback.
As the darkness moved in for the night stages, Keith and Co-Driver Greg capitalised as Mark Higgins complained of small niggly problems. They trimmed the Subaru drivers lead by 20s and 13s respectively on the two dark stages, in the process moving up the leaderboard from 9th to 5th.

They woke up early on Saturday morning too, setting the pace on the days first 8 stages and in the process, they moved into a strong second place and to within 2.6seconds of Higgins as they returned to Kelso Racecourse for the final service.
It was at this point that their comeback came unstuck, as they opted to use a dryweather slick tyre for the last 3 stages. As they headed towards the final stages, it began to rain and they were at an immediate disadvantage. On the first of those stages they had a costly spin and dropped over 5 seconds and a further 4 on the penultimate stage.
Although fastest again on the final test, Keith and Greg had to accept that it was not to be, however they must be very heartened by the manner of their amazing comeback.

The fact that they retain their lead in the BRC is also rewarding after having had such a time loss so early in the event.
Also reassuring must be the fact that from the 32 stages run so far, in this years BRC they have been fastest on 19 of them (Wilks on 4 and Higgins on 9).

What a tight championship it is so far this year!!

After the aforementioned 32 competitive stages, if you take the cumulative total of their stage times they are separated by .4s, albeit in Mark Higgins favour!!

This has to be good for the sport!!