Amateur team on verge of their first ever Monte Carlo Rally in star packed centenary eventProSpeed team snap up top co-driver as team coordinator

Daily Mirror sports journalist Byron Young and amateur driver Tony Jardine, Sky’s motor sport expert, will be attempting for the first time ever to finish the most famous and yet most difficult rally in the world, the Automobile Club de Monaco’s Monte Carlo Rally.The world’s best rally drivers from 27 countries around the globe are about to descend on Monaco to do battle for the sport’s most glittering prize high above the principality in the French Alps. From the Ardeche region to Drome and Alpes Maritimes over four days and two nights, 120 cars will cover a total of 1341 kilometres, over 13 special stages which could be covered in snow and black ice. This makes the Monte Carlo Rally the most difficult and challenging of all rallies. Tyre choice is critical and danger waits around each corner.Byron Young has endured snow, ice and minus temperatures in Yorkshire and Scotland as part of his co-driver training, even finishing one event third overall on ice, navigating Tony Jardine to an excellent finish in their ProSpeed run Ford Fiesta ST 150 rally car. The media pairing will be in the same car around the sinuous Alpine passes next week as they try to ignore the long drops and precipices that have caught out so many competitors in the 100 year history of the famous event. The likes of 2003 World Champion Petter Solberg and 1994 Monte Carlo winner and French legend Francois Delecour have been drawn back to have another crack at the demanding rally. Captivated by the challenge, the Daily Mirror ProSpeed team decided it had to be Monte Carlo or bust. Young finally achieved his international licence just before Christmas, which was necessary for him to take part in this prestigious rally. Jardine has long held the ambition to take on the Monte Carlo challenge and now it is about to happen he is getting to grips with what’s needed to try and get the Kumho supported car home.“We are both going to realise our ambitions when we start the rally next week, but we have a three day exhaustive recce of all the stages to complete first. We have to make our pace notes from scratch over every last kilometre in detail. But because the conditions can change so drastically in the mountains, the organisers allow teams to run ‘safety cars’ over all the stages, three hours before the rally cars actually compete, so backup crews can make note of any black ice, snow, or lack of it to inform the drivers and co-drivers of any changes to the road since the recce.” The ProSpeed team will use a Citroen C-Crosser 4x4 vehicle supplied by Citroen UK for this difficult task.The Daily Mirror team will then have to choose which of the specially built Kumho winter tyres they will use after ProSpeed boss Olly Marshall and Craig Parry, his former co-driver and now team coordinator for this event, return from each safety run through the stages. Top co-driver Parry who normally navigates for young rally star Tom Cave was due to co-drive for him this year but his team had to pullout, so he was instantly snapped up by Olly Marshall.Marshall commented, “We are very lucky to have Craig, he is a very experienced co-driver who has been in lots of world rally campaigns with me but more importantly he will be able to act as Byron’s mentor, especially during the difficult recce and then help me coordinate the team activities. To make effective accurate pace notes for the Monte Carlo Rally is a very tough task especially if like Byron you have only competed in a handful of national rallies. The organisers have given us special dispensation to take a third person in the Citroen C-Crosser for the recce as they are aware of Byron’s lack of experience so I am very grateful to them for that decision.”Journalist Byron Young added, “This is a huge challenge for me, I know it can be a treacherous rally too, I have seen video clips of competitors crashing, some hanging over the edges! I will have a massive amount of work on my plate over the next week as this rally is really intense, and somehow I also need to make time to write stories and file copy to the Mirror! Tony and Olly have turned this challenge into a reality for me but I am aware that it is also a huge financial outlay for them which is why we are really grateful to welcome sponsors Gran Turismo 5 for PlayStation 3 and Motorsport Insurance Services onboard as part of the team.“I’d like to say I’m ready for Monte Carlo, but you can’t be when you don’t know what challenge is going to hit you next!”