The latest round of the West Wales Rally Spares HRCR Stage Masters Challenge, the Phil Price Memorial Woodpecker Stages, took place in the heart of Welsh rallying country and was based at the impressively spacious headquarters of Britpart Limited in Newtown. Stages in Hafren, Tarenig and Myherin provided a mixture of great forest tracks. On the day there was a little rain in the morning with heavier showers as the day progressed. The recent dry spell had left the roads with a lot of thick powdery dust and the rain turned that into very slippery mud with many crews being caught out throughout the day. Luckily, I can report that all our contenders stayed on the road most of the time and all made it to the finish which is a great achievement.

Top scoring co-driver was the wiley Guy Weaver who has always supported the HRCR championship and is making a bid for glory with the affable but unregistered Rudi Lancaster in their familiar Escort RS1800 in the D5 class. Only 31 seconds behind after a tremendous push were Baz Wheeler and John Pickavance, their car performing admirably after a rare retirement on the last round. Baz thought that his tyres were a bit hard for the conditions but didn’t fancy dipping his hand into his pocket for something softer! Mike Simpson and Dale Gibbons, also in class D5, were on another confidence rebuilding outing and more importantly wanted a finish which they achieved after a steady run. Next in the class was Ron Morgan whose beautifully prepared Escort arrived in service with a little bit of damage to the rear, the result of ‘a corner that I wasn’t expecting!’

In the healthy 2 litre pinto class Hywel Davies mopped as expected, winning the class by well over 2 minutes in his RS2000. Dave Peters has been running well and again took the bridesmaids place along with Stephen Spear who was having a day off from accompanying Freddy Camp who was indisposed. The rock solid crew of Paul Holmes and Liz Beesley took their Escort to third despite an uncharacteristic overshoot on stage 4 and Liz dropping the pace notes on stage 8 which resulted than a much better time than in the morning!

Two rounds remain for the West Wales Rally Spares crews with a wait until November for the Wyedean and a visit to the Grizedale Stages in December. The leading Challenge driver is currently Baz Wheeler who holds a commanding lead whilst last years champion co-driver, Liz Beesley, has stealthily climbed to the top of the leader board too after consistent performances.