Coleford's Nik Elsmore has won the Get Connected! Wyedean Forest Rally for the second time in his career and now needs only one more victory to equal his father Graham's hat-trick established between 1975 and 1977.

Overcoming extremely tricky conditions caused by snow and ice on the special stages in the Forest of Dean, Nik and co-driver, Craig Drew, brought their Mitsubishi Lancer EVO9 to the finish at Chepstow Racecourse ahead of the similar car of Daniel Barry and Martin Brady.

Indeed, it was only through the grit and determination of the organisers, Forest of Dean Motor Club Ltd, that the event took place at all.

Heavy overnight snow on the Thursday made travel of any sort through the area very difficult and, by breakfast time on the Friday, the situation was not looking good at all. However, some minor alterations to the schedule and the deployment of a snow plough through the special stages in the forest saw 160 crews take the start at Chepstow Racecourse on Saturday morning and an enjoyable, but challenging, event was underway.

The 2008 Wyedean winners Andy Burton/Shelley Rogerson (Peugeot Cosworth) led for the first couple of stages but then lost half a minute to the eventual winners on the run through Speech House and were unable to make up the deficit before the finish.

Nigel Griffiths and Robin Kellard (Subaru Impreza) and Thomas Naughton and Horace Saville (Mitsubishi Lancer EVO9) were 4th & 5th respectively.