Ceredigion crusade for the Stage Masters Challenge

The FIA European Rally Championship was in town for Rali Ceredigion and West Wales Rally Spares Stage Masters Challenge contenders enjoyed an extremely fruitful trip for those that headed to Aberystwyth. The ERC circus brought much razzamatazz and also different timing systems for the co-drivers to get their heads around. The stages were predominantly brand new and were, by all accounts, extremely good. The rally started with 2 town centre stages in Aberystwyth on the Friday night followed by a loop of stages on Saturday and Sunday, both repeated on the same day.

As for our contenders, Hywel Davies elected to use his asphalt prepared Group 4 class D5 Escort RS1800 and drove consistently well to claim maximum points on both days, the only downside being a jump start penalty of 10 seconds which lost him a place in the overall standings but meant nothing from a Challenge perspective.

Paul Holmes and Elizabeth Beesley had a very good weekend in their pinto powered class D3 Ford Escort Mk2 and also picked up a 10 second jump start penalty which made no difference to their result in the scheme of things. They did however become the new Challenge leaders overall as their consistency over the season paid off along with less competition in the class, this really was a good championship for them to pursue and their commitment has been repaid. It is not all over yet though as there are mathematically other registered contenders that can win.

Also keen to score some D5 points was Dan Morefield who is usually out with Jack Thorne but hitched a ride in Martin Rossiter’s Shell liveried RS1800 Escort to claim maximum points on both days. With 3 more Challenge rounds remaining there is still all to play for.