2009 News...

Last Saturday I and Joe Cruttenden finished a fantastic 3rd in the BTRDA Rally First 1.4 class and 70th overall at our first attempt on the Somerset Stages Rally. The rally was based at Minehead and used stages in and around Exmoor. We achieved this despite have a puncture 0.5 miles from the end of the stage 3, which lost us 20 seconds. We managed to complete the stage and changed the wheel on the road section to stage 4. In the overall standings we finished 12 seconds behind the crew in 2nd place (in the RF1.4 class), so without the puncture.but that's rallying! The rest on the rally went really well especially the last few stages, with no further incidents and the car performing brilliantly. About 150 crew started the event, 97 finished and we actually finished 70 overall. The BTRDA Rally First 1.4 class is a very competitive class of rally with more competitors joining at each event. This is our first podium in the BTRDA Championship, hopefully not the last and the result has moved me up to 5th in the Rally First RF1.4 Drivers championship.

The picture above shows us tackling the Chargot Forrest stage on the Somerset Stages Rally. More photos can be found if you click here Rally Gallery.

If you click on the following link you will be able to see Neil Johnson's article on our Somerset Stages rally experience. Neil is the Motorsport reporter for the Lancashire Telegraph and regularly supports my efforts on the stages. Press coverage.

Thanks to Joe Cruttenden for being my Co-Driver for the rally. Thanks also to John Goff and the Rallyschool team who prepared the car.

Thanks also to Radio 2's Chris Evans for reading out my Mums text on his drivetime show last Friday before the rally and he also said that we can join his Yellow car club.

My next rally will be the Plains Rally based at Welshpool on 16th May 2009, which is the third round of the BTRDA Rally First Championship.

Cheers