By Andrew Haill

Julian Reynolds has won the Rally Marketing Mid-Wales Historic Stages Rally by the tightest of margins! After 54 miles of special stages in some of the area’s classic forests, the Haverfordwest driver, co-driven by Ian Oakey, brought his Ford Escort MkII back to the finish of the event in Newtown just one second in front of last year’s winner, Nick Elliott. For his part, Elliott was quick out of the blocks, setting fastest time on the opening stage by ten seconds. However, as the day wore on, Reynolds upped his pace and clawed the deficit back to not only take the category but also the outright win.

In the Historic category, former British Historic Champions Dessie Nutt/Geraldine McBride were leading their Porsche 911 and looked on course for victory until transmission trouble intervened soon after the start of the penultimate stage. They were forced to park up at the side of the road, leaving the Ford Lotus Cortina of Simon Wallis/Graham Wride to cruise to the finish in top spot. After three of the five stages, Graham Waite/Gill Cotton had been just two seconds adrift of Wallis but they were forced to slow up after their Volvo Amazon began using copious amounts of oil. Although they hung on to runners-up spot, the gap had opened up to more than half a minute by the end of the event while the Porsche 911 of Rikki Proffitt/John Stanger-Leathes was third.

Defending Dunlop / WONAGO MSA British Historic Rally Champions David Stokes/Guy Weaver began the defence of their title in the best possible way by winning the Post-Historic category. In a Top Ten dominated by Ford Escort RSs, Rupert Lomax/David Al**** and Chris Browne/Liz Jordan were 2nd & 3rd respectively, while visiting Belgian crew Stefaan Stouf/Joris Erard returned home with a useful points haul, having taken 4th place, just three seconds off a podium finish.

In a similar fashion to the Historic Rally, the winners of the 2010 Rally Marketing Mid-Wales Stages had to be content with 2nd place this time. Matt Edwards/Sam Collis, who had not been out in their Subaru Impreza since last year’s event, were beaten by the similar car of* Tom Cave/Craig Parry who had come straight down to Newtown from Cumbria where they posted a Top Six finish on the previous day’s Malcolm Wilson Rally.
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Tom set fastest times on all four stages to complete the event 40 seconds ahead of Matt who, in turn, was half-a-minute in front of Damian Cole/Ben Innes whose Hyundai Accent WRC was experiencing problems with it’s paddle shift even before the start.
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While the pre-event formalities took place on a dank and misty Saturday afternoon, the rally itself was blessed with fine weather. Retirements were, thankfully, kept to a minimum but amongst those who failed to make the finish were Paul Kynaston/Gary Bulley whose return to the Historic Championship in a recently completed Opel Ascona 400 ended prematurely.
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Full results for both the Mid Wales Historic Stages and the Mid Wales Stages are available on www.rallyroots.com*

Further details from the Rally Marketing Mid Wales Stages Press Officer:

Andrew Haill
Tel: 0121 313 1416/On-Event: 07836 729549/E-mail: andrew.haill@btconnect.com








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