Rallye Sunseeker

Another year and another trip down South for the Sunseeker. A rather depleted entry took to the stages Saturday morning and the top three on the entry list all retired due to a variety of maladies. So it was Will Nicholls & Nick Broom who took victory after a day long battle with Roger Duckworth & Mark Broomfield. Completing the podium were Sean Devine & Francis Regan, making it a 1-2-3 for the Subaru marque.

The battle in group N was immense with Daniel Barry & Martin Brady just edging out Simon Hughes & Patrick Walsh to take the first round of the Evo Challenge. The overseas contingent made their presence known too as Andreas Magnusson & Henrik Hulterskog just took third in group N and the Evo Challenge, with one stage remaining, from Nik Elsmore & Craig Drew.

Tour of Epynt

An excellent day up on the Epynt military ranges saw Melvyn Evans & Gareth Roberts crush the opposition with a dominant victory in their Subaru Impreza WRC. With the conditions damp and greasy 2008 winners John Dalton & Gwynfor Jones could not get the power down in their Darrian on the first loop, losing the best part of a minute. The gap steadily grew as Evans stamped his authority on the event but Dalton was best of the rest in second place.

David Kynaston & Andy Russell completed the podium positions in the ever popular Audi Quattro A3, with Damian Cole & Martin Henry fourth in their Hyundai Accent WRC. Special mention must go to fifth place crew Simon Mauger & Brian Cammack who beat several World Rally Cars and numerous other 4WD crews, with spirited driving in their Escort MkII. Chris Jones & Richard Williams won the BTRDA Asphalt Rally Series section in their unique Focaru.

Telford Winter Stages

A murky Sweet Lamb and Hafren greeted the crews on this year’s Telford Winter Stages. The organisers managed to weave in significant portions of the Hafren forestry complex to keep the layout and format of this event fresh. Nick Kenny and George Gwynn were looking to make it a hat-trick of victories but they retired early in stage 6 with mechanical woes. Dave Brick and Rob Woodhouse had been setting the pace and took victory by almost 2 minutes.

In the Historic section David Stokes and Guy Weaver took a comfortable victory following the stage one excursion of Terry Brown and Den Golding. We wish Terry a speedy recovery after such a big off. The Formula 1000 section was won by Martin & Neil Copcutt.

Wyedean Forest Rally

Another excellent Wyedean where the snowy conditions, (a la 1986), produced a fascinating rally. It was the local crew of Nik Elsmore and Craig Drew who took overall honours with some commited driving. Daniel Barry and Martin Brady made it a Mitsubishi Evo IX top two with Andy Burton and Shelley Rogerson completing the podium, in the Peugeot Cosworth.

With the snow and ice making the rally somewhat of a lottery many of the regular BTRDA contenders struggled, none more so than the 1400 runners who endured the worst conditions running at the head of the event. Congratulations to Julian Wilkes and Andy Ballantyne on winning the 1400’s, ‘Mad’ Mick Jones and Dale Furniss on winning the Silver Star and Theo Bengry and Les Forsbrook on winning the Historic section of the rally.