Wilks gets the show on the road in Brazil (From The Northern Echo)

Wilks gets the show on the road in Brazil

9:47am Friday 5th March 2010 in

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A MARCHING band, an opera singer and hundreds of spectators braved heavy rain to watch Darlington rally driver Guy Wilks and co-driver Phil Pugh drive their Skoda UK Motorsport Fabia S2000 over the ceremonial start ramp to begin the Brazilian round of the International Rally Challenge.

"Is it always this wet in Brazil?," joked Wilks, as he was interviewed on the ramp.

Wilks had been third fastest at the earlier shakedown stage.

He was one of very few drivers to get as many as three runs, as the start was delayed for more than two hours while mandatory medical cover arrived. Having turned up at the start stage at the scheduled start time of 8am, the stage finally opened at 10.30am - and closed on schedule at 11am.

Despite the long delay, Wilks remained very positive.

"It was definitely worth doing those runs at shakedown, because it was a good confidence settler to get back in the car," he said. "We obviously didn't do as many miles as we'd hoped, but we were still able to work on a few different options for the damper settings."

The stage planned to decide the running order of the top ten cars was cancelled, due to the wet conditions.

The Rally International de Curitiba ends on Saturday at 4pm local time (7pm UK time).