JON Armstrong will be remembering happy times from his last appearance at Rally Sweden when he and fellow Fermanagh man, Brian Hoy won the Junior WRC event in 2022, ahead of his top flight World Rally Championship debut at the event this coming weekend.
The Kesh native will be hoping to repeat that level of performance in the Umea region between tomorrow (Thursday) evening and Sunday but he knows, after just one event in a Rally1 car, he still has a lot to learn.
“It’s always an exciting event and the last time [I was there] me and Brian [Hoy] won the juniors, so I’ve got fond memories of it,” he beamed.
“It’s going to be a big challenge getting used to the aero on these cars because the stages are quite fast, but it’s going to be exciting.
“There’s still a lot to learn, but you have to be a fast learner in this game!
“Okay, our peers have more experience, but all we can do is the best we can and hopefully as the event goes on figure out how to improve. But you never know how the event will unfold.
“That’s the good thing about rallying, you just try to do your best and sometimes that can be very good even from the get-go.”
Looking ahead to his Sweden return, Armstrong admits that the weather conditions could prove the biggest issue this weekend.
A lack of snow means the insurance of the stage-side snowbanks will either not be there or they will be greatly reduced, while slightly warmer temperatures mean the ice on the roads could be eroded away during each run.
“We’ll try to put the foot down and see how we go but there’s not a lot of snow this year and I don’t think it’s coming so it’s going to be quite interesting,” he observed.
“[Without the snowbanks] you’ll slip off the road a lot handier and also the gravel is going to come through which might change the times between each car, so I don’t know if that will be a positive or make things worse.
“[Rally1 cars] cope really well with all sorts of terrain, so if there is gravel coming through, they have a lot of travel on the suspension to deal with it.
“It’s not like going into those conditions with a front-wheel drive car without a lot of ground clearance.
“But we’ll focus on what we can control and do what we can do and see where we end up.”
After a stunning debut at Monte Carlo last time out when he claimed a third fastest stage time and was sixth overall on the penultimate test before aquaplaning out, Armstrong admits he’s trying to see the many positives of that performance.
“It was pretty good as a get-go, sitting in sixth with some really good stage times and splits, but I always had a feeling I could do more, so I think, when you feel like there’s more potential, you’re never fully satisfied,” he said.
“There were probably a few too many errors and while I’d be hard on myself for those things, it’s about striking a balance between being positive and making change because you don’t want to be too hard on yourself, you want to enjoy it too.”
