The first event of the year, time to blow the cobwebs away. Once more I find myself sat next to Jones the Younger for the day. His co-driver was on a Peugeot Winter Cup round, so he had asked me to sit in with him once more. Usually I jump at the chance of a ride in a rally car, but this time I was a little on edge. This was to be the second time I had sat with him and the second time I sat with both Mick and Stuart we rolled. Thankfully Darren didn't follow suit and kept it the right way up all day.

This was Darren's first forest rally and first time on pacenotes, but it didn't take him long to get into it and as the day progressed he got quicker and quicker and the grin never left his face all day. Not even when the gear linkage popped apart on SS5 leaving us with only 2nd gear for half of the stage. A quick phonecall to Mick, who was servicing for us for the day soon had the problem rectified and we were on our way to the final stage with no time loss.

It was a great day's sport and saw Darren come on in leaps and bounds as he put more miles under his belt.
 

With Dave Howell's TEG Sport Imprezza sporting the new TEG Sport livery it was quite an eye catching car that turned up at Chepstow for a snowy Wyedean Rally.

The inclement weather conditions meant that our service crew were unable to get down to the event so the decision was made to do it as a "self-service" rally. We stuck a set of Kumho tyres on the car plus one spare in the boot, filled her full of fuel and off we went. Returning to service for a quick check over, a change of front tyres and top up with fuel. We then carried on with the second half of the event and brought the car home in 13th overall and 2nd in class. Which under the circumstances was I feel a very good result when you take into account we had no snow tyres either.

The weather certainly made it a very challenging event. Dave drove superbly all day and I just wonder how much further up the leaderboard we could have been with proper snow tyres. After we left service Dave felt a kick back through the brake pedal and it was discovered we had cracked a front disc. So Dave heated up the brakes on the road section in the hope that the disc may settle back down and

last the day. This seemed to work and the disc felt better. Dave decided to give SS5 a run and "take it steady"... this then netted us 2nd fastest time on the stage. With SS6 having been cancelled due to the tragic accident on SS3, crews were rerouted on to SS7 where we had Andy Burton running behind us. We reached the stage finish to hear that the stage had been stopped due to Andy Burton's accident. With just the final blast around the racecourse we were home and dry. Once more the car had run faultless and Dave's driving throughout the day had been impeccable, but we both heaved a sigh of relief when we handed in the final timecard at MC4. It was so good to see the car safely back on the trailer.

When all around us cars were falling by the wayside Dave kept us on the road and gave us a healthy handful of both BTRDA and Welsh National points to head off to Cumbria with for the Malcolm Wilson Rally in March. Wonder if there will be any more white stuff up there..?
The first round of the ANCRO Championship now sponsored by Hankook saw Mad Mick's first attempt at a championship since his assault on the BTRDA series in 2002. After talking to the ANCRO organisers at the Autosport Show and being told of the 2 Wheel Drive Challenge with the prize drive in Marcus Dodd's Hyundai WRC, Mick's eyes lit up and he said we'll have to have a crack at that..! So here we are.

Mick had hoped to wheel out his Escort with a new engine for the Sunseeker, but as it wasn't ready the JonesSport Escort was hired for the event. Now this car only has a 2 litre Pinto in it and is basically a historic spec Escort. But that didn't deter Mick in the slightest. In typical Mad Mick fashion he grinned and said it will be fine. Also we would be running on maps and not on notes as Mick just can't get on with organisers notes and feels he is faster and safer on maps. With the first two stages along the prom, I had just memorised it and didn't even bother with the map (but I didn't tell Mick that). We came out of it 3rd in class and Mick was well happy... he had been lovely and sideways onto the pier and seemed to really enjoy himself.

The next morning and into the forests and Mick was soon into his stride setting fastest 2WD times all day and just driving off into the distance without a care in the world. We had very few problems to report during the day. We did lose the rear brakes on one stage so we backed right off and just cruised through the stage.

The only moment we had to speak of was when the car leapt off the road into a ditch on SS4 under braking... it raised a chuckle from us both and a comment from me to the effect of.. "that was a novel line to take there Mick..!"

We had a strange noise appear from the gearbox as we left the last service which made such a racket in the car we thought the gearbox was about to explode, but everything was working fine and we reckoned that if it was going to blow up then it would have done so on the road section. So we decided to go into the stage and just see what developed. Well the outcome was the noise disappeared just after the start of the stage never to return. So whatever it was must have lunched itself and got ground to a paste during the stage.

The final result was 1st in class, 1st 2WD and maximum points in the 2WD Challenge and one step closer to Mick getting his hands on Doddy's WRC prize. Next up the Border Counties... will Keilder be nice to Mick for once... or will the Keilder jinx strike again...? Watch this space...
I was supposed to be doing this event with Mad mick in the Escort, but as the car was still lacking certain parts i.e. an engine and gearbox, Mick passed our entry on to youngest son Darren so he could get some mileage in readiness for his Peugeot 205 1400 Challenge debut. Also, it was decided that I should give him a chance to experience maps first hand. I will let young Daz take it from here in his own inimitable style.

The night before event Dad says to me "Right I've taken her up the road for a quick spin. On the long straights keep your foot flat to the floor with as little steering imput as possible". "Why?" "Because the rear bearings have gone and if she handles like that on tar she will be a pig in the mud!!"... and he was right as after the second corner where the rear end tried to overtake us 4 times in the stage me and Andy knew it was going to be interesting, which it was. First time on the maps really enjoyed it.

Whilst coming out of hairpins sideways with the bearings steering us well, when putting the power down in the high powered 83bhp Pug I had time to lip read a lot of people..."What the f**k is this muppet doing" seemed to be the words on most people's lips. Apart from the rare dancing Japanese invisible penguins that migrated north for the occasion trying to drag us into the ditches twice we had alot of fun and was over the moon with my first class win. With 45 miles of the rear end being like it is, a Pugs happy tail doesnt really cause me as much grief as it used to, so I learnt a lot in that respect.

The second round of the BTRDA series saw the trek up to Cumbria for the Malcolm Wilson Rally. With TEG Sport running the Stobart Subaru for Paul Bird, plus the two Stobart liveried Subarus of Wyn Humphreys and Mark Higgins as course cars we were offered space to service with them. Which we duly accepted.

Our main rivals were going to be the Imprezzas of Tristan Pye and Iwan Rees who were both registered for BTRDA. Dave Bogie and local hero Dave Wright were also going to be very quick, but we were happy to let those two go and fight it out amongst themselves for Group N honours.

Our plan for the day was points. We would drive our own rally and see what the day would bring. It was fairly clear what was happening by the end of SS2. With the customary delay while the rescue crews dug another kamikaze 1400 out of the scenery before SS3 could run it gave everyone a chance to check each others times. Both Bogie and Wright were on a mission while it was all fairly close behind with Howells, Rees, Pye and Allingham all close enough together to ensure that we were kept on our toes. Pye was to slip down the order slightly with a front puncture on SS3 but the battle between Dave and Iwan Rees was to go all the way to the final stage with both tied on 50:45 at the finish. This was resolved in Rees's favour by way of his faster time on SS1.

The final result saw us pushed down yet one more place to 9th overall when John Crawford slipped ahead by 2 seconds on the final stage to edge both us and Rees out of the 7th overall spot we had been holding.

Service with style... tea and buns with Stobart
With the Astra the next outing for the TEG Sport Imprezza, we will be dropping the next two rounds of the BTRDA series and will resume with the Red Dragon Rally on 19th May.
The first round of the Peugeot 205 1400 Challenge at Driffield saw Darren Jones ready to start his assault on the championship (and anything else that got in his way). The first stage very nearly saw us head straight into retirement when a front tyre was taken out very early into the first stage, I put it down to youthful exuberance, Darren put it down to too much right foot. We limped around and ended the stage with a very seriously square looking rim. So it was back to forest tyres as we only had four slicks and we had trashed one of those.

Unperturbed by the setback Darren swopped to forest tyres and carried on regardless. Young Mr Jones was soon attacking like a seasoned pro... taking no prisoners he set about some serious chicane demolishing which seemed to be the aim of every single competitor. Some swiping it with the rear end while a brave few tried the head on approach.

                   
With no more real dramas to speak of save for a couple of lurid spins while trying to find the limits of adhesion in the little Pug, Darren went on to record a finish and while the result was not one to write home about or start ringing Motoring News about, it was still a finish, while a lot did fail to finish.
After dropping the North Humberside Rally from our BTRDA schedule the next event was supposed to be the Astra Stages in April, but after the event was cancelled due to lack of entries Dave decided to bring out the TEGSport Imprezza on the Somerset Stages. This meant a busy weekend for me as I was co-driving an Escort the following day down at Talbenny in West Wales.

Now the Somerset Stages was not an event that we had planned to do as we had a fairly busy schedule for the year and Dave isn't a great lover of the stages down there. With the dry dusty conditions we decided to go for a steady run and just see how the day panned out.
Our fears about the dust was correct and midway through SS1 we suddenly came upon a big dust cloud which was so thick we were reduce to walking pace at a couple of points as we could hardly see the end of the bonnet..! It transpired that the Ford Focus of Michael O'Brien had caught fire and two cars had stopped to lend a hand in extinguishing the fire with their hand held extinguishers and had restarted just in front of us and we unfortunately caught their dust. The resulting time loss equated to around 15 seconds or so and left us just outside the top ten in 11th o/a.

With the two runs up Porlock Hill Toll Road Dave had his first taste of the Imprezza on tarmac. While our times were nothing to shout home about Dave was happy with the feel of the car on tarmac and the grip from the Pirellis we ran was impressive.

Back at second service in Minehead we were leading N4 by 7 seconds from James Harvey, so a fresh set of Kumhos were fitted and we set about extending that lead over the final set of stages.
The last batch of stages went without any dramas and we were swapping times with Peter Eggerton and Jon Lloyd during the afternoon. While Lloyd was too far ahead to do anything about we were slowly reeling Eggerton in, but ran out of stage mileage before being able to overhaul him, finishing the day 6th overall just 11 seconds down on Eggerton, but stretching the lead in N4 to a minute a the finish.
The morning after the Somerset Stages I was out again, this time at Talbenny in West Wales. This was a local event for me and I was sat next to Justin Ford who had recently come back into rallying after a few years away from the sport. Justin had bought a road rally spec Escort and the first thing he warned me was that it didn't have the horsepower that I have been used to in the machinery I am usually sat in. He wasn't far wrong as I think the average electric toothbrush has more horsepower than that Escort.

With a new engine and a complete rebuild on the cards Justin was just using it to get some stage mileage under his belt. On SS1 Justing showed he was a little bit out of practice when getting "confused" approaching one of the chicanes and promptly spun the Escort and stalled it. The resulting 30 seconds or so time loss trying to get the hot engine to restart saw us well down the field. But Justin was having fun!
Another problem Justin was having was an ineffectual handbrake, that along with the lack of power which meant he was unable to unstick the slicks we were running meant that all the tight hairpins had to be driven round nice and sedately, just like grandma going to the shops. But we were having fun which is what it was all about.

The slicks were standing up well to the very abrasive nature of the stages, which wasn't surprising when you looked at our pace on the day. Justin soon settled down and we kept improving our times throughout the day.

A puncture on the penultimate stage saw us limp around slowly so as not to damage the rim if possible. Without a spare slick the decision was taken to put on a set of road rally tyres on the rear for the final stage.

The resulting lack of grip compared to the slicks meant that Justin could throw the car around into corners and hairpins and he had more fun on that stage than all the rest of them put together..!

I only wished I had known he had those tyres there earlier as I would have made him put them on earlier. The difference in our times on those tyres was barely noticeable, but hell it was far more fun.

Justin hopes to get out on Eppynt during the summer, he loves Eppynt and has done well over there in the past. I will look forward to the new engine and a bit more grunt otherwise the climb up some of the hills on Eppynt could be rather laborious.
The Red Dragon Rally was the rally that first got me interested in rallying way back in the early 70's when it used to start from my home village of Saundersfoot as a Motoring News Road Rally. I did it a few times back in the 80's when it was still a Welsh Championship Division 1 event and picked up a few class awards and back in 2002 had my best result to date when Mad Mick and I were 3rd overall in the Evo V.

It was also the first event I sat with Dave Howells on last year. That was just supposed to be a one off event, but one year on and he still puts up with me next to him babbling in his ear all day long. After the result on Somerset we were hoping for much of the same, but you know rallying, it never goes to plan.
I will let Dave take up the story here...

Had a bloody awful morning, 2 big overshoots and an off in three stages. First one was the uphill hairpin left about a mile into SS1 where the logging had been going on, completely lost it under braking and ended up making the specatators run for cover up the escape road. Stalled it, wouldn't start, reversed 20 yds and got going again, lost just short of 15 seconds on that one. SS2 I was unsighted on a deceptive L6 over crest, bonnet scoop blotted out the road and I ended up driving straight off it, another 10 secs ditched! SS3 was a L3 into L3, unfortunately there was an escape road on the second L3 which I realised too late wasn't the route as the second L3 emerged in Andy's window, stopped, reversed and about another 8 or so secs gone.

Confidence at an all time low going into SS4 but we emerged clean at the other end, albeit slow! 5 and 6 were an improvement, 6 being the best with fastest Group N and joint 4th fastest o/a. Just one of them days I guess, booking an eye test this week to make sure it's not me!

So as you can see not the best of events for us, but by the end Dave's confidence was back up and he was back on the pace as usual, sadly just a little too late to reel in Iwan Rees for second in class, we finished just 4 seconds down on him at the end. So we now look forward to the Quinton Rally in July where we will once more be battling hard on stages we know well and love.
The second round of the Peugeot 205 1400 Challenge saw me once more sat with Darren Jones in a rather refettled 1400 205 once more. Gone had the rear wheel steer characteristics thanks to new bushes in the rear. Darren was keen to do well after the Driffield disaster and was more than geared up for this one. I will let Darren take up the story from here...

Weekend started off well untill we hit the Leistershire border and realised slicks wont really be useful this weekend, arrived at Twyford Wood on Saturday evening and myself and my dad walked the stage, forgot how many times he said "The finnish will probably be around this corner.", but it was lots..! Was a real good idea recceing the stage after theDrifields misshaps and was very useful next day.

About to go to the start of SS1, just making sure the tyres are pointing near enough in the right direction etc. then noticed when revving the engine you could hear air escaping. Popped the bonnet thought it was due to manifold leaking, so carried on.

SS1 - The problem was actually due to the rare Japanese invisible penguins jumping under the bonnet and loosening the bolts holding the carb on and we had no power as soon as we hit 4000 rpm was very frustrating but just drove and took note where all the bad bits were for a push in the next stage.

SS2 - Went really well, the most fun I have had on a rally stage first time felt fully confident with the car.

SS3 - Also went well apart from the rare Japanese invisible penguins makeing the road slippy causing me to have a half spin

SS4 - Cancelled due to accident on stage

SS5 - Went okay timewise but Ididnt enjoy the conditions, wrong kind of rain for my liking :D

SS6 - Was eventually cancelled but we were not told that until after we had completed the stage, so went through pretty on it as we were on form for second in 1400 Pugs and stage went well apart from one error where had to use the bank to stop me

All in all cracking day happy with my pace, really enjoyed it
      
What Darren doesn't really mention is that after losing the time on SS1 with the carb coming loose, he stormed back up the field setting top three 1400 times on all the rest of the stages against much more experienced competitors to come from last 1400 after SS1 to 2nd in class by the finish and that was also with two stages cancelled. All in all a really mature drive from someone with relatively little experience and in conditions that even the ducks didn't like.

Well I told Dave to expect rain for the Dukeries... but I had not expected the deluge that did occur...! Arriving at the start on Saturday morning to find the venue under 18" of water and a lot of crews having to paddle up to their knees to get to their cars..! It was going to be an interesting day..!

With SS5 Rainbow Hill cancelled due to the weather it left six stages with one long extended service after SS4 before the final two stages to complete the event. The finish had to be relocated to the service park as Southwell Racecourse was underwater.

Our main opposition was going to be Tristan Pye/Kirsty Riddick in their Subaru Imprezza N11 and we needed to beat them today for Dave to close down the seven point advantage to Tristan who was leading BTRDA overall, with Dave in 2nd overall.

At the end of SS1 we had taken 4 seconds out of Pye and opened up the gap on SS2 to 17 seconds. This was because Pye had stopped to give Michael O'Brien his extinguisher when his car had once again gone on fire.

SS3 was our worst stage of the day and Pye took back six seconds from our lead followed by a further three seconds on SS4. This had not been helped when Dave had lifted off at the flying finish warning boards and I had to yell at him to floor it..! A very uncharacteristic error on Dave's part.

With the conditions being as wet as they were we had decided to cut the Kumho's and Dave had taken a few stages to find their limits, but he was very pleased with the excellent levels of grip they were giving in the awful conditions.

Photo copyright Geoff Mayes Images

Photo copyright Geoff Mayes Images

At service we had an 8 second lead over Pye, but when he was awarded our time for SS2 as a nominal time after his having stopped to help out the luckless O'Brien it moved him into a 5 second lead in Group N. We had work to do..!

SS6, the longest of the day saw Pye take another 2 seconds out of us to move into a 7 second lead. With just the final run through Portland 2 of 6.73 miles it seemed a monumental task to take the lead back. It was a case of win it or bin it...! Which would it be...?

Dave drove faultlessly in what was one of his best stages all year and emerged at the end of the stage with joint fastest time overall with Damien Cole in the Hyundai Accent WRC. On checking times at the stage finish we discovered we had taken the 7 seconds and were now tied on 43:10. But most importantly, we had been quicker on SS1 so took the win on furthest cleanest and 7th overall.

Such was the closeness of the battle that only 7 seconds separated the cars in 3rd to 8th overall, which given the conditions is pretty much amazing.

Southwell Racecourse Saturday Morning

It didn't look deep... it only came halfway up the ducks
Tyre problems was the story of the 2007 Quinton Stages for the TEGSport Subaru... well the lack of them to be exact. With Kumhos being in very short supply we were left having to use secondhand tyres for the event, which was to cost us dearly in the end.

Also we had to stop on SS2 due to Peter Eggerton's accident. This affected both the car immediately in front and behind us who also had to stop on the stage. This time loss cost around 15 seconds. Then the organisers give the car in front a nominal time for the stage but refuse our request for a nominal time on the grounds of "force majeur" which didn't go down very well.

The tyre issue saw us basically run out of rubber on the last stage and cost us around 5 to 10 seconds on our stage time and saw us work our way down the order from our 2nd in Group N to finish 4th in Group N at the end.

There was also the issue of the "disappearing towrope" that a certain competitor used to finish the rally which saw a number of competitors protest the crew in question. Once again the organisers buried their heads in the sand and said "We didn't see it so it didn't happen"
Dave's comment was very apt... "Sometimes your the dog and sometimes your the lampost..! Today we are the lampost!!"

The Swansea Bay Rally was a last minute decision and done on the basis of a tyre test. With the Kumho tyre issue still fresh in Dave's mind a fresh source of rubber was needed, so what better way to test than to do an event. It was touch and go as to whether Dave would arrive at the start due to the flooding enroute. But arrive he did. We decided to try Dunlops and see how we got on with them. Last year we had tried Pirelli's and Dave didn't like the feel on them, so we decided to see how Dunlops felt.
With the stages very wet it would be an interesting day and after the poor run we had on the Red Dragon Rally earlier in the year Dave was wanting a better run. We had two sets of Dunlops for the day with one set cut and one set uncut. Dave opted for the uncut set first and the first mile of so of Margam Dave was very sideways, which raised a few eyebrows from my side of the car until I realised Dave was just trying to find the limits of the tyres. He then settled down and service returned to normal. The tyres felt good and Dave seemed pleased with them. We had one spin on one stage in the morning and Dave apologised at the stage finish, but I pointed out to him that it wasn't his fault but rather it was mine for a slightly late call on the bend in question. At service we changed to the cut set to evaluate them in the wet conditions. About 7 miles into the 17 mile Rheola stage we hit a rather large rock on a lefthand bend which punctured the tyre and also bent the bottom arm quite severely. We dropped 4 minutes with the tyre change. The same rock also claimed Damien Cole and Roger Chilman Jnr. Cole also had to stop and change his tyre but Chilman Jnr. was out. But we had done what we needed which was to evalute the tyres and now the switch has been made. Let's see how they fare on the Woodpecker in September..?

A tarmac event for me... was a nice change. Once more I was sat next to Justin Ford in his road rally Escort MkII. It was one of the least powerful cars on the event and with it running a 3.9 diff we were going to struggle up the hills on Eppynt.

Justin had not been on Eppynt for a couple of years, so we decided to take it steady for the first few stages. It was also his first experience on Patterson Pacenotes and in particular the number system. But he soon got into his stride and while the times would not worry John Dalton at the front of the field they were consistent, being within a second or so on each run. The poor old car was running out of puff fast and justin was wringing it's neck as best he could.

We had opted for slicks on the front but road tyres on the back as the engine did not have the grunt to unstick the rears as we found out earlier in the year at Talbenny. The car didn't miss a beat all day and apart from refueling the service crew had little to do.

But Justin notched up a finish and now he is looking at changing the engine, box and rear axle for something with a lot more power for next time out.
After what seems a very long time I found myself strapping myself back into the EvoIII alongside Mad Mick once again. I hadn't sat here since we retired on the Red Kite Stages on the last stage whilst leading. Once more Mick refused to use organisers notes opting for maps as he does. He just like to make me work a bit harder on the stages..!

The first couple of stages we were both a bit rusty, Mick having only driven the EvoIII a mile since the Red Kite in January 2006 and Ihadn't been on the maps at this sort of pace since then either. But by SS3 we were back in the groove and setting some very respectable times. Bearing in mind Mick was using old secondhand tyres and he had retarded the ignition 5 degrees as he was using a homebrew fuel. In typical Team Chaos fashion Mick had blended together a mix of 102 octane fuels (whatever was left in the numerous cans he had plus some Tesco99 he also found..! What is he like..!) So the enginw wasn't putting out it's full potential. From the end of SS2 the front nearside driveshaft was making some very ominous noises on righthanders so we were waiting for that to let go at anytime.

On the second run through Resolven I had a little nag at him to "tidy it up please!!" At the end of the stage he told me at that time he was having the mother and father of moments while flat in fifth and was just trying to stop having a monumental accident. I left him off with that one..!
The net result at the end of the day was a class win and 4th overall. Not bad for a 12 year old car that hardly ever sees the inside of a workshop from one year to the next. But Mick admits the old girl is running out of steam against the likes of WRC cars such as Damien Cole's Hyundai and the Focuses of O'Brien and Lloyd who all finished ahead of us. But one thing of note is that the final results showed us just a second a mile off the winners pace. Not bad for and old car, a rusty driver, homebrew fuel and maps..! Good on ya Mick..!

Back on the BTRDA trail once again we were now left with the task of beating Tristan Pye on the remaining rounds of the series to take the BTRDA Production Cup. With the change to Dunlops from our usual Kumho tyres we were feeling confident that we could be in with a shout. But as is the norm not everything goes according to plan.

During the morning stages the Impreza was constantly trying to swop ends on us. Finally we were caught out on a hairpin right and disappeared off up the escape road in a huge cloud of dust. The resulting time loss was enough to make us play catch up for the rest of the day.

At service Dave made the decision to alter the rear suspension settings. It was obvious that the car was far too nervous on the rear end and while the new Dunlops worked well in the wet conditions of the Swansea Bay Rally they didn't want to play in the dry dusty conditions of the Woodpecker. The changes helped but more tweaks were needed to get the car right.

The outcome was we dropped to 3rd in Group N and 11th o/a behind Tristan Pye and Tim Pearcey and we kissed the Production Cup goodbye. It was the first time we had finished outside of the top ten since the snowy Wyedean back in February.

But by the end of the day we had seen a marked improvement on our morning's performance so it looked like we were heading in the right direction. So let's see what the Plains Rally will bring.
Friday morning before scrutineering for the Plains Rally saw a large gaggle of rallycars heading for the Sweet Lamb complex for testing. It seemed that a lot of people had wanted some last minute testing before the rally. We had decided it would be prudent to check out the changes we had done before starting the event, though the conditions were far from ideal. We made a few runs and Dave pronounced himself happy. The car was doing what he wanted, the nervous rear end was once more back to normal so we decided that we were ready to go.

Damian Cole was there testing his Hyundai Accent WRC. Chatting to him about the car he asked if I fancied a spin out in it. Never one to turn down a ride I grabbed my helmet and jumped in. By now the conditions had deteriorated to the point of downright awful, but we headed out anyway.

By the third lap Damian was really winding it on then it happened. On a sweeping righthander the Hyundai suddenly caught a patch of standing water which twitched the car sideways and pitched us over the edge of the road and about 30 feet down a bank. A large tractor with a winch was required to get the car back to the road, thankfully without any damage. But poor Damian didn't half take some stick for it.

I wonder if he will ever invite me for another ride with him?
 

As for the rally, well that went better. Damian went on to finish 5th o/a and we finished 3rd in Group N and 9th o/a behind hard charging ANCRO regulars, Sebastian Ling and Nik Elsmore and beating our championship rival Tristan Pye by 3 seconds.

For the first time we had ran an incar camera. On receiving the DVD after the event we were studying it intently and looking for areas where we feel that improvements could be made. We identified an area which we feel needs addressing and steps are being made to make a few changes. It also amazed me to see how much time Dave spends driving with just one hand and also how long we spend in fifth on the later part of Gartheiniog..! Scary stuff watching these incar videos..! It certainly doesn't feel like that when you are in there, but I suppose I am too busy to notice during the stage.

The Bulldog Rally was the shortest event of the season for us when we retired six miles from the end of SS2 with a broken wishbone. We suffered this after visiting the same ditch that claimed Marcus Dodd on the second run of Dyfi.

SS1 Dyfnant had gone very well and we were pleased to be just 1 second behind a hard charging Jock Amstrong in his TEG Sport Impreza. The start of SS2 Dyfi was particularly slippery and we were taking it steadily. We were out for Welsh Championship points and the only person we had to worry about, Damian Cole in the Hyundai Accent WRC had retired 300 yards before the start in Oswestry. It seemed the car had suffered camshaft failure on the way to the start and as we were going over the start ramp we saw the Hyundai coming in on a towrope!

All we had to do was finish for Dave to take over the lead of the Welsh National Championship with one round to go. Sadly, this was not to be. On the approach to the corner where Jock had gone off we were slowed by spectators and saw co-driver Kirsty Riddick climbing back up the bank. Dave was given the Ok by the people on the scene and carried on, but three corners further on Dave thinks he misheard the notes and missed the R6 before the hairpin left. The outcome was we slid wide and into a big hole which broke the front wishbone. We dragged ourselves out of the hole and carried on, but we realised that we had done some serious damage when on the next righthander the car failed to turn and deposited us into another ditch. Once more we managed to drag ourselves out and parked it up on the next hairpin right a few hundred yards on.

After the second pass we walked back down to meet our service crew who were waiting to recover us.We were met with a scene of total carnage as seven cars in total had gone off on the same corner and the stage was blocked with recovery vehicles trying to winch them all out.

Now we look forward to next season and once more we hope to be back on the BTRDA and Welsh National Championship trails and look forward to seeing everyone out there. We have had a great season and have done some good development work on the car, so it should put us in a good position for next season.

Not the way we wanted to end the season

Doddy in our ditch

Carnage in Dyfi

Recovering Jock's car

Jock leaves his mark!