Six Scrutineered, Five Started, Two Finished!

Club Chairman Paul Loveridge Doing What He Does Best

Scrutineering at Y Fedw Equestrian centre, just off the Epynt Ranges, was bathed in warm spring sunshine and officiated over by HRCR club chairman-cum-chief scrutineer, Paul Loveridge….what could possibly go wrong?

But before the Forresters/Forest of Dean event had turned a wheel Mini contender Stuart Hart was taken ill overnight bringing the Mini ranks down to five….nothing too serious we understand but enough to make him not fire on all four.

Current championship leaders, Clive King & Anton Bird, made the most of the dry conditions and quickly threw down the gauntlet with a slim margin of just a few seconds over Craig King & Kevin Hogan with Shane Gamble & Julia Perry hot on their heels.

Eric Davis/Russell Joseph and Tom Welsby/Amy Mellin only separated by two seconds a little further behind when disaster struck in the shape of Toms’ driveshaft breaking free and Erics’ transmission seizing after a particularly heavy landing over one of Epynts’ notorious yumps.

Tom Crawled through the “Service-In” Control with the Broken Shaft Stowed in the Minis’ Footwell.

SS3 saw the three remaining crews separated by less than 10 seconds until on SS4, again after a heavy landing, the alternator bracket on Shanes’ Mini twisted out of shape causing its cooling fins to disintegrate and headed north embedding themselves into the glass fibre bonnet via the top hose.

Gamble & Perry with their Hands Full Supervising the Volunteer Service Crew

Being part of the HRCR rallying fraternity fellow member Stephen Powells’ Avenger service team consisting of John Hawkins and Mike Maine, dived under the bonnet and with a combination of beg, steal and borrow soon had the stricken Mini ready to line up on SS5, where remarkably all three cars recorded a time of 4:16!

A serious car fire halted proceedings resulting in the cancelation of SS7 after a Mid and West Wales fire appliance was mobilised but rendering the road surface unusable.

SS8 also saw the demise of Craig King and Kevin Hogan with ignition problems as the heavens opened leaving some of the ranges awash with several crews being caught out with tyre choice and subsequent aquaplaning on slick tyres.

One can only imagine the issues the organising team were dealing with but drawing on their wealth of experience SS9 was cancelled giving crew the opportunity of re-setting before attempting SS10 which was re-run after a short service…….a brave but ultimately successful decision giving competitors another run.

The King/Bird Mini Preparing for the Epynt “Drizzle”

Our two remaining crews, King/Bird and Gamble/Perry soldiered on with the latter pushing the former hard but given the issues sustained previously was resigned to come home in second place, both in the championships and in the events H1 Class.

The Exol Oil winner was Clive King with Shane Gamble picking up the Snap-On prize.

The biggest placing on seeding receiving a set of pads provided by Questmead went to Shane Gamble.

A frustrating and eventful day having all the elements that rallying and particularly the Epynt Ranges can offer with a particular “hats-off” to the organising team of Forresters and Forest of Dean clubs.