The Clerk of the Course for the Wye Dean Rally, Phil Turley, and the organising team should be commended for the hard work in the weeks leading up to the event, given the horrific weather conditions, with people out clearing trees in the early hours of Saturday morning to give competitors an event.

Ross driver Dan Gray said that he and new co-driver Matt Rogers had a challenging Wye Dean.

Dan said: "Conditions were very wet and slippery and being 15th car on the road, standing water was something we found ourselves navigating through and around for most of the day.

"We finished the rally 5th in class, but picking up a 1 minute road penalty from checking into MC2 early, we dropped back to 6th in class and 35th overall.

"I was happy with our performance but Matt and I still need to work a little harder to find a bit more pace in the car together, which I think will come over the next few events.

Overall, it was a good result to even finish the rally looking at how many people retired and we are both looking forward to the Malcolm Wilson three weeks." Full report in this week's paper.