New rally but same strategy for Tom Cave in Ulster

Despite next weekend's Rally of Northern Ireland, the fourth round of the 2013 MSA British Rally Championship, comprising a new base and stages, Welsh Rally driver Tom Cave will be approaching it with the same strategy as the previous round - targeting a win in his attempt to claim the 2013 crown. But with Fast Finn Jukka Korhonen showing excellent pace so far and local hero Alastair Fisher likely to also be very fast, Cave knows it will be a tough fight as the series resumes after an eight-week break.The second asphalt round of the 2013 series takes the crews to Northern Ireland and the event base in the town of Enniskillen, in the Lakeland region and close to the border with the Republic of Ireland. The stages for this year's event are all new, with several having formed part of Ireland's round of the FIA World Rally Championship in the past and combine fast and flowing tarmac with tighter, more technical and bumpy roads.The fourth round of the series marks the end of the summer break and the start of the second half of the season, with this and two more rounds to go. Approaching the event, Cave is lying third in the championship points, three points behind Fisher and eight adrift of Korhonen. But he is buoyed by not only his pace on the series' first tarmac event, the Jim Clark Rally in June, where he and Korhonen were separated by fractions of a second through most of the event but also, his initial pace on the last round, the Scottish Rally, where he made the early running.With Rally Northern Ireland comprising the longest distance of the BRC series and around half of that run on the Friday afternoon and evening, Tom knows that again, he and co-driver Ieuan Thomas will have to push from the very start to stand a chance of claiming the win their championship season needs."I'd like to think that after the Jim Clark and the Scottish, we should be in the running for the win. But Alastair and Jukka will both be very hard to beat," he explained. "It's the longest event in the BRC - around 130 stage miles - and split over two days, so we need to have a big push from the start, otherwise our rally will be over if we need to play catch-up on Saturday."But the process of victory will begin long before the start of the first stage, as Tom has a test scheduled in Wales before he and the DMS Morris Lubricants team depart for the ferry to Ireland, as well as taking part in the pre-event shakedown."With the event effectively completely new, then the recce will be crucial. Getting a good set-up for the car at the test as well as fine-tuning this at Shakedown combined with a really good set of pace notes will give us the best chance to go out there and win. We know we have the pace, from the Jim Clark, so that will be the goal, pure and simple."The recce for the event takes place on Thursday 22 August while shakedown is on the morning of Friday 23. The event itself begins at 12.45 on Friday, with two loops of three stages plus a run around the superspecial stage at St Angelo airfield, the location for the service area. The total distance for Friday is 65 miles, with a further 64.5 competitive miles on Saturday, split over eight stages in four loops, with two more runs around the St Angelo stage. The first crews are expected to arrive at the ceremonial finish in the centre of Enniskillen at 17.45.

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