MSA English Rally Championship | Ice with that Sir ?

Ice with that Sir ?

The Wyedean Forest Rally, the opening round of the 2012 SWISHER MSA English Rally Championship was certainly a challenge for competitors, organisers and marshals alike. The 75 championship crews who started the Wyedean Rally were faced with treacherous conditions as the covering of snow on the forest tracks combining with the severe frost, polished to create an ice ring where cars found little grip and marshals and spectators had difficulty standing up.

There were some amazing performances from crews and none more so that Julian Wilkes / Will Rutherford (Nova) who not only won the 1400 category and Class E2, but came a remarkable 3rd overall. Other crews in class E2 were also very successful with Dave Bennett / Alistair McNeill (Corsa) finishing 7th overall from the capacity 180 car field. BTRDA Rally First champions Ashley Slights / Tom Hughes (Toyota Yaris) were also going remarkably well and lying 5th overall at halfway but they were caught out by the ice on stage 5 and recorded their very first non-finish in two years of forest stage rallying. The 18 Rally First crews in Class E1 were led home by Ian Barrett / Gavin Wright in a Rallyschool Micra who finished an excellent 21st overall ahead of many 4 wheel drive cars. It is pleasing to see that even in these very difficult conditions 15 of the 18 Class E1 Rally First cars managed to reach the finish

In the E3 class Neil Matthews / Ian Arden (Nova) were the outstanding crew who clearly mastered the conditions and finished 18th overall and more than 3 minutes ahead of the other crews in the class. Class E4 was won by Grant Rees / Wyn Davies in the beautifully engineered widetrack Nissan Micra with a 2 litre engine from a Nissan Primera installed.

The 2012 Wyedean was not the ideal event for a rear wheel drive car and all the crews reported lots of excursions on (and off) the stages. However in these conditions you would not be surprised to hear that the 2011 championships Alan McDowall / Gavin Heseltine (Opal Kadett) used their experience to come out on top in class E5 ahead of Jerry Bailey /Graham Lacey (Escort).

So the initial championship points table after round one shows the customary ties for the overall positions but this will certainly change as the season progresses. In the Junior Category Matthew Cathcart leads the drivers section ahead of Sion Matthews but the surprise package is Harry Threfall in third. This was only Harrys second ever rally and first time on gravel stages in a 1 litre Citroen C1.

Please note that the scoring for the MSA English Rally Championship is class based so competitors in any of the classes have the opportunity to become MSA English Rally Champions. Likewise the Junior points are calculated on an index of performance to try and equalise out the potential performance differential between the classes.

Next up on Saturday 3rd March is the Malcolm Wilson Rally, based at the M Sport HQ near Cockermouth which uses the classic Lake District stages including Grizedale, Greystoke and Hobcarton. After that there is a seven week gap until the Somerset Stages.

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