Melvyn Evans took his 2nd consecutive win on the recent Sligo rally this time with a comfortable winning margin of 41 seconds, this pushing his total win tally for the year up to 4 and putting him in the lead of the Dunlop national rally championship. Evans led from the start, heading into stage 3 7 seconds up on the subaru S11 of rival Niall Maguire with Derek Mcgarritty retiring on the 1st stage with gearbox trouble. Evans managed to go 17 seconds quicker than anyone on stage 3 giving him a lead of 24 seconds heading into the first service!
Mwlvyn co-driven again by Patrick Walsh from Aberystwyth built on their lead through the remainder of the day and took a winning margin of 41 seconds with Kevin Barrett 3rd 2 minutes down on Evans.

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James Belton finished a fantastic 2nd on his first event in 5 months on the Quinton stages on the epynt ranges and the surrounding forests. Belton had a huge battle with Roger Chilman Jnr's Group N spec Subaru. Chilman was quickest out of the blocks over the long 11 miles of Dixies a recreation of the Halfway test used on rally GB Andy Burton was quickest clocking 11.43 with James on 12.03 which was a creditable time considering his lengthy lay off and just for infromation Sebastien Loeb did a 10.19 in the pouring rain on last years rally GB! Belton lost 8 seconds to chilman a margin he had made up by the first service, Chilman then struck back to make it all square going into the final test which was monument. Belton set a time 5 seconds quicker than his first run through the stage and Chilmans fuel pump went in sight of the finish giving Belton 2nd overall. Steve Perez won in his Ford Focus Wrc '07 after Andy Burton retired.

Here is some incar footage from crychan:-

Melvyn Evans and Patrick Walsh took their 3rd win of the year on last weekends woodland house hotel Circuit of Munster rally which was round 6 of the 2010 Dunlop National Rally Championship, and Melvyn is now right back in contention for the title after a 4th in cavan and a 3rd in monaghan after retiring on the Circuitt of Kerry wilst leading. Evans was 2nd going into the 1st service 3 seconds off the pace setter Niall Maguire and one second up on Kevin Barrett. On the next couple of tests evans pulled out a healthy margin off his rivals taking 14 seconds off the nearest challenger in stage 3 and over the rest of the rally Evans continued to increase the gap until he could afford to ease off on the final stage and take a victory of over 20 seconds from Maguire with Barrett 3rd.

Peter Lloyds Debut in his new Subaru Impreza Wrc S14 on the rally of the midlands faltered with Pete complaing that the cars setup was wrong, the settings were changed and all set for a new start on saturday but Peters navigator Graham Handley mistaking their day two start timeand the S14's debut ended there and then. This prompted Peter to enter the following days mid-summer caerwent and despite a stage 4 puncture Peter fought back to win by 26 seconds from the hard charging escort mk2 of Steve Leonard. Berian Richards debuted his S9 subaru on the rally of the midlands but failed scrutineering due to a sticker that had gone missing off of his Hans device. Richards managed to start the event but not showing on the official times, but after comparing times Richards would have been fastest on 3 stages giving him a lot of hope for the forthcoming Fat Albert Stages.

Melvyn Evans took his 2nd consecutice win in the Dunlop Irish national championship on the Mayo stages last weekend, leading the rally from start to finish like 2 weeks previously in Neneagh on the Birr stages. After the first stage Evans held a 5 second lead which was cut by 1 second by the Subaru S11 crew of Kevin Barrett/Sean Mullally. By the end of the next loop Barret had cut the lead to only 1 second, however Evans excelled over the last 3 tests to take a 20 second win over Barrett.
Meanwhile on the Epynt M.O.D ranges Peter Lloyd took a start to finish win with the similar car of steve simpson 2nd. Lloyd co-driven by Graham Handley were challenged early on by John Dalton but that challenge evaporated with clutch failure. This let Peter relax over the afternoon tests and took a winning margin of over half a minute. Tim Wilson retired early on with Gearbox problems.(Photo by crspics)

Melvyn Evans grabbed his first ever National Championship win on the Birr Stages in Nenagh on Sunday the 28th of February. 2 Challenging tests repeated 3 times was the order of the day, and Melvyn was quickest out of the blocks by 8 seconds from Derek McGarrity. At the first service Melvyn led by 10 seconds from Kevin Barrett who was quickest on the 2nd test. Melvyn was quickest on the 3rd and 4th stages to lead by 33 seconds with only 2 tages remaining. He held out over the final 2 stages taking the win from Derek Mcgarrity's similar S12B machine by 22 seconds and leads the Dunlop National Rally Championship after round 1. Click on thumbnail for large picture.