Newly crowned British Rally Champion Keith Cronin is all set to fly the flag for Abarth when the final round of the Intercontinental Rally Challenge (IRC) gets underway this evening with the first two timed stages. Photo: Cronin Motorsport.

Newly crowned British Rally Champion Keith Cronin is all set to fly the flag for Abarth when the final round of the Intercontinental Rally Challenge (IRC) gets underway this evening with the first two timed stages. Cronin, who will be driving the only Scorpion entry on the rally, spent Tuesday and part of Wednesday doing the scheduled reconnaissance of the stages, the first time he has got behind the wheel of the Italian S2000 category car. Cronin's biggest hurdle will be that he be using a Sadev transmission in Scotland and these units, which were discarded by the factory for 2009-build cars, have shown constant serious weakness making his attempts to reach the finish line more tricky.

Since early in the year plans were being made to contest Rally Scotland so that Cronin could test his pace against the regular IRC competitors. The original intention was to contest the event in his regular Mitsubishi Evo. However, as the Irishman intends to contest a number of rounds of the IRC next season, it was decided that having won the British Rally Championship, he should get a taste of S2000 action prior to next year.

It took ten days to get an acceptable deal put together for the hire of the Procar run Abarth Grande Punto S2000. A short testing session in Italy at the end of October was curtailed due to very heavy rainfall, so the crew welcomed another test before having to press into action. Cronin and co-driver Greg Shinnors are seeded at number the in the Abarth Grande Punto, just ahead of Adam Gould who was awarded the BF Goodrich drive in a sister car to Meekes Peugeot. Cronin says he welcomes the opportunity to compete at this level but knows that it will be a steep learning curve as the pace in these cars is much faster than the regular Group N cars: “The most important thing for me in Scotland is to get mileage in the car to get used to the different driving style and then build my speed and hopefully set some competitive times," said Cronin.

Scotland is ready to welcome the first international series to its forests in 13 years. Despite rain and high winds around Perth and Stirling - and much of the rest of the UK - which begins this evening. The entry list is very weak however as with the IRC titles all since decided the Abarth factory team, as as well as the Skoda operation, have stayed away from the event, while Peugeot are out primarily with newly-crowned IRC series champion Kris Meeke who suffered minor suspension damage to his 207 S2000 this week but remained unflappable in the build-up to his home event. His car features a unique livery to celebrate this celebratory appearance on British soil to crown a fabulous year. Meanwhile his Kronos-prepared running-mate, 22 year-old Adam Gould in the BFGoodrich Drivers' Team Peugeot, is suffering from a lack of practice mileage following an engine failure. Graduating to the powerful S2000 category from his Group N entry on the British Rally Championship, Gould's car suffered an engine failure that robbed him of valuable setup and familiarisation time. Local hero and former British and Asia-Pacific rally champion Alister McRae has made a breakneck run from the Rally of China to compete for Proton in its Satria Neo S2000 and double British champion and IRC regular Guy Wilks has thoroughly enjoyed getting to grips with his privately-entered Fabia S2000.