Melvyn Evans stepped back into his own car for the 1st time in exactly 2 months with the last event being the Mewla which ended in dissapointment when a cracked head forced a retirement whilst leading. The car has since been checked over and had a rebuilt engine and diffs from prodrive prior to the 2009 Fastnet Skibbereen, After a friday afternoon test the team was all set to embark on 7 challenging west cork stages. Evans started strongly albeit thinking that he was a bit rusty setting a time of 10:04 only 3 seconds slower than the time set by tarmac championship regular Niall Maguire. Over the next 2 stages however Denis Cronin would set fastest times and joint leader with Evans after 2 and leader by 1 second after stage 3. Cronin went about extending his lead on the next loop and succeeded fastest on stage 4 with evans thinking his tyres were going off but found out halfway through stage 5 that he had a slow puncture and this cost him dear. Cronin now had what seemed like an unassailable lead with 2 stages to go and Maguire was only 1 second adrift in 3rd and on stage 6 Maguire set a time 1 second quicker than that of Evans which meant the fight for 2nd was on with 2 drivers dead equal at the final service hault. Cronins lead had been cut to 20 seconds. On the last stage Evans took 2 secinds off Maguire and 9 seconds off Cronin despite goin out on intermediate tyres on a bone dry stage. This left the team with a satisfactory 2nd overall to show for their work. Here is some incar footage from Stage 1 Maultrahane.

Will Nicholls and Nick Broom saw their 2009 BTRDA Gold Star Championship bid wrecked on last weeks Cambrian rally, with Mikko Hirvonen and Mads Ostberg entering as a test for this weekend's Wales Rally GB. Nicholls suffered an unlucky roll in the first test and a few spins in the second and in SS3 Nicholls was trying to make up lost time in his S9 Subaru Impreza but went over the edge and collided with a bank, in the process ripping the front right hand corner off putting an end to his rally and title hopes.

Video by Chris Ingram:

Peter Lloyd accompanied by, guest co-driver Nicky Grist for the 1st time grabbed victory on the 2009 Paperclix Jersey rally by 20 seconds from the Escort mk2 of 2007 winner Simon Mauger. The teams other car Berian Richards also co-driven for the 1st time by Frank Curtin from Ireland finished 7th after rising as high as 4th at on point, with the slippy conditions of friday suiting the madwelshman best. Lloyd took control from stage 1 of the extremely narrow event, but never left Mauger behind swapping seconds on Friday afternoon Mauger reduced the deficit from 12 to 6 seconds at the overnight halt, the only drama for Richards was that he hit a kerb and a fence wich led to a garden shed being destroyed. Over day 2 Lloyd and Grist extended their lead to 10 seconds by the midday service, with Mauger expected to take time back over the last loop the pressure was on but Peter kept on pushing and finished 20 seconds ahead of Simon Mauger, Richards slipped to 7th by the end of the day and was a bit dissapointed by his final placing.

Pictures can be found on: http://www.jerseyevents.com/
and
http://www.photography.je/rally

The 2009 Woodpecker rally was the penultimate round of the BTRDA as Will Nicholls and James Belton travelled in high hopes of a good finish, Belton coming off a brilliant win on the neath valley stages and Nicholls returning after a summer break to try and tighten his grasp on the BTRDA rally championship. Will got off to a flying start leading at the 1st service hault from local man Nigel Griffiths, Belton was in 5th. Main challenger Andy burton suffered problems and he was a minute behind. Over the next loop will increased his lead over the rest of the field to 18 seconds, Belton although was coming under pressure from Roger Chilman an eventually got passed by Chilman only for Chilman to retire promotinh James back to 5th, Will and Nick increased their lead over the final loop and took a fantastic win leaving them only needing a respectable points score on the Cambrian rally to secure the BTRDA championship, Belton caputalised on Chilmans retirement to finish a brilliant 5th.

Video by Chris Ingram

With 4 cars out on the 2009 Eventsigns Mewla rally the Melvyn Evans motorsport team headed towards builth in force with Melvyn Evans/Sean Mullally seeded at car 2, Peter Lloyd/Graham Handley at 3 with Tim Wilson/Elgan Davies at 18 and Berian Richards/Pete Bold at 70 testing the car for the Paperclix Jersey rally in October.
After the opening loop Lloyd lead from Evans by 3 seconds, Tim Wilson spun on stage 3 finding driving conditions hard, Berian Richards did not start a stage due to unfortunate cancellations but still found time to complain about his brakes and received a penalty for going the wrong way on a road section. After a repeat of the 1st loop Evans took the lead by 4 seconds from Lloyd and Evans extended his lead by a further 10.5 seconds over stage 7 but was forced to retirement after a cracked head. This left Lloyd away in the distance from Damian Cole and took his 2nd Epynt win in under a month, Tim Wilson caught Rob tout on the last stage who in turn caught Ray horton who Tim needed to beat by 4 seconds to take class honours, Tim did enough and took over 51 seconds out of Horton, Richards would have took 28th but penalties relegated him to 37th.(Incar video coming soon)

James Belton and Eurig Evans fired home to take their 1st outright rally win. James who is starting to really get to grips with his S7 Impreza WRC took victory by nearly a minute over the famous Resolfen, Walters Arena and Rhondda stage. James was equal fastest with Damian Cole/Nicky Grist over the 1st Walters test but a fuel pressure sensor forced them out to let James take fastest on 4 of the 6 stages, the only reason for him not being fastest on every stage was due to the Exhaust manifold catching fire on stage 4 as James limped through the final stage to take his 1st victory.

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