His rivals consider him as one of the title favourites, but Mark Kelly is playing down his chances in this year’s Motorsport UK Protyre Asphalt Rally Championship.
The Bolton ace has a point. He may have an extremely good rally win to rallies contested ratio, and he did finish runner-up in the 2021 Protyre Asphalt series – but he still lacks the experience of his opponents, is still getting to know his Kelmore-supported Škoda Fabia R5 and is making his first full-time return to the series since a big accident on the 2022 Dunoon presents Argyll Rally.
Mark had a relatively quiet year in 2023, although it did include victory on the Tour of Epynt, Hills Ford 3 Shires and five other single venue events.
Two of those other victories, at the Abingdon CAR-nival and Neil Howard Memorial Stages, came with Richard Scarbrough sitting next to him – giving the Sales Director of Witham Motorsport a 100% winning co-driving record!
This year Mark is back with co-driver Will Atkins for a full assault on the Protyre Asphalt Rally Championship.
And despite what his rivals think of his chances of winning the title, the priority for Mark is having fun.
“It’s going to be a very competitive Protyre Asphalt Rally Championship this year and honestly speaking I don’t think we’ll be on the pace, especially to begin with,” says Mark.
“After a couple of big offs in 2022, last year was a very quiet one rally-wise for us. We did mostly single-venue events, which were fun and served a purpose, but now we’re looking forward to getting back to doing some closed road events again.
“But I really don’t expect to be running at the front end. I’m still getting used to the Škoda and there are some events, like Argyll and the Jim Clark, that I haven’t really got much experience on at all – and that’s going to show against drivers like Roskey [Neil Roskell], Callum Black, James Ford and John Stone.
“That said, we’ll obviously give it a good go!
“I’m looking forward to the opening North West Stages, because I was born in Preston and it’s my local round. I finished third on the event in 2022 and really enjoyed the stages.
“In fact, the calendar of events in the Protyre Asphalt Championship is fantastic, and the intention is to be there on every round this year.”
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