THE nerves are setting in for rally driver Aaron McClure as he prepares for a return to action after 10 months kicking his heels.

The 22-year-old saw his 2016 campaign ruined early on, as a crash in the Somerset Stages in April write off his Mitsubishi Evo 9 and left him having to rebuild the car from scratch.

McClure will finally get back behind the wheel at next month’s Cambrian Rally, having scrapped and scraped to put his machine back together, and find the funds to warrant another tilt at the BTRDA Rally Series Production Cup.

It has been a long time away for the Flookburgh ace, who is looking forward to his return, while recognising it will be tough being back in action.

“It’s not been easy,” McClure said of his absence. “I’ve been going to the rallies to help out with friends and different teams, just to try and keep involved and on the scene. But it’s pretty tough to turn up at a rally without the car and watch everyone else.

“I’m excited and nervous at the same time about coming back. We’re going back into a really competitive class, the same as it was last year – in fact, there are more people entered.

“We understand that we’re going to have to bed ourselves in, but there is still the competition element where we want to be at the front.

“There’s going to have to be a fine balance between getting back into it and trying to keep the speed up. The first one is going to be quite tough.”

He added: “We did the first road test, but we’ve not had chance to ride it in anger yet. We did 30 miles on the road, and luckily everything was okay.

“We’re trying to put something in place before the first round, but it’s the same thing with the time and the money situation – it’s 50/50 as to whether we will get chance, or if we just turn up at the first rally and see what happens.

“We’ve got less than a month and we’ve still got a few finishing touches to apply to the car. When you’re working a full-time job, that means we’ve got about eight days left. It’s going to be tight, but we will have to make it happen.”

That first event will be the Cambrian Rally on February 11.

It is not an event McClure has had much joy in previously, failing to finish on both previous occasions he has raced – once with brake failure and last year when a bad pace note left him on his roof.

The failure in 2016 was followed by a successful home event in the Malcolm Wilson Rally, before a poor tyre choice led to a crash in the Somerset Stages. The car hit a tree at the side of the road and only now is the reconstructed machine ready to go again.

McClure said: “We spent a lot of time having to sort out the car after April. There were budget restraints within that as well, so it was quite tough to do. It took a lot longer than we wanted to get ready.

“But we’ve just put the finishing touches on the car now and it’s looking good.”

He added: “The car was a write-off, and because of our budget, we’re not lucky enough to insure the car – it’s all self-funded. As of April, we had a big pile of scrap and no money.

“Not only was there a lot of work to do, it was having to find the money to keep us going at the same time.

“We’ve managed to save a few bits, but the old car was left-hand drive and the only replacement I could find was right-hand drive. We’ve had to buy a lot of parts we didn’t expect because of the steering wheel side change, as well as parts that were broken.

“It’s like a new car. The engine and the mechanicals are the same – although they have all been redone – and everything else is brand new.”

While the car is ready to go, it’s paintwork is currently blank, as McClure and his team seek sponsors for the 2017 campaign.

He said: “I’m scraping together every penny I’ve got to make sure we get into the first round. We know it’s an expensive sport, and every little bit helps.”

Anyone interested in helping him with sponsorship , can email aaronmcclurerallying @gmail.com