Junior rally driver Alick Kerr gave his championship prospects a massive boost with a storming drive on the Merrick Forest Stages on Saturday.

Kerr (20) and co-driver Drew Sturrock (19) turned in a determined performance in the Leaker Direct Rangemaster Fiesta ST to come away from the Newton Stewart-based rally with maximum class and junior points for the Scottish Rally Championship.

Even though the Merrick – a 45 mile blast through the famous Glentrool forest complex – didn’t get off to the best of starts for Kerr and Sturrock, the boys stuck in and were rewarded for their drive to succeed with the best result possible.

Having spent the first test re-acquainting himself with a car he was driving for the first time since mid-July,  Bothwel driver Alick then picked up a puncture on the second run. This left him over a minute adrift of season-long sparring partner Stevie Brown, and going into the final full-length Glentrool stage Kerr was sitting third in class behind Brown and Honda Civic driver John McClory.

“Drew and I went into the last stage thinking we could catch John in the Honda if we pushed hard, but just a few miles in we saw Ian Morrison – Stevie Brown’s co-driver – standing at the side of the road and noticed their car had gone off the road,” explains foundry engineer Alick. “It wasn’t until the finish that we discovered McClory had some problems with his gearbox and that we had managed to leapfrog him as well.” The result moves Kerr into third place in the Scottish junior rally championship title race, with one round still to run.

Furthermore, the strong finish means the Lanarkshire driver has an excellent chance of winning his Scottish Rally Championship class on the seasonclosing Colin McRae Forest Stages at the end of September. “Unfortunately, with Stevie not finishing, the 205 GTi Challenge boys were able to score more points and hold on to the lead of the junior series,” continues Alick. “We’ve all already dropped our two scores for the year, so somebody else really needs to have a problem for us to take the juniors. But as always I’ll be going all out to do the best I can!”

Before then, however, the Leaker Direct Rangemaster Fiesta ST is in action on the Autumn Stages on Sunday, 14 September. Whilst it isn’t a Scottish championship round, the Autumn is still one of the most popular rallies in Scotland – and with four-wheel drive cars banned from this rally round the grounds of Drumlanrig Castle, Alick Kerr is in with a chance of scoring an outright win. “The Autumn is a nice relaxed event with a cheap entry fee and a good stage mileage, so we thought it would be a good way to get more time in the car and to go for a good result,” adds Kerr, who will welcome Aberdeen doctor Steven Brown into the co-driver seat for a one-off run on the Autumn. “There are going to be some quick Ford Escorts in front of us but we are gunning for a strong outright result – you never know what could happen!”

Further information on the team can be found at www.alickkerr.com