Last weekend’s Plains National Rally saw some local crews walk away with silverware, while others were not quite so successful.

Paul Willets reports that the long standing BTRDA and Welsh championship encounter had experienced serious problems obtaining enough mileage to make the event viable. This was due to the poor state of forestry roads, with Dyfi Forest being totally unusable.

However 117 crews left the picturesque market town of Welshpool for the 40 miles of competitive action.

Rallying veterans, Bob Morgan and Ade Williams came away with top local honours, further developing the new Winner Garage Skoda Fabia, finishing 20th overall and fifth in clas. Their only issue was losing the clutch for a few stages, meaning stage starts were difficult.

For Ben Friend and Cliffy Simmons it was a change of car from the usual Escort to a Fiesta R2, the drive kindly donated by Swift Group MD, and well known competitor Peter Smith.

But they didn’t get off to a good start with a bottom arm coming loose on the way to stage one, from then on the duo had great fun to finish 44th and third in class.

A new combination of youngsters, James Watkins and Dan Sayce were in the Rally Marketing Escort, hired from Geoff Jones Motorsport. The duo had a great day to finish 56th and third in class.

There was a great battle for local pride and silverware between husband and wife, Nigel and Karen Jenkins in the NJ Autos Vauxhall Nova, and Richard Cole and Matt Nicolas in the Cole Contracting 1400 Escort. Just one second separated them at the finish.

The former finishing 64th and third in class with Cole 65th and fourth, with Jenkins fighting back after a slow start with no fifth gear and selection issues most of the day. The afternoon saw him push harder to climb the leader board to finish in the silverware.

Scott Partridge and Bev Mace in the Bullit Polish Subaru Impreza, finished 74th and 12th in class.

Graham Waite with Gill Cotton calling the notes, finished 76th and seventh in the Toyota Corolla. With the new two wheel drive regulations coming in from July 1st, rally fans will hopefully see Waite back in a category one historic car, as he was a huge spectators’ favourite in his old Volvo Amazon, which he threw at impossible angles.

Sadly for Group N front runners, Tom Naughton and Will Rogers who made a good start in the Lancer Evo 9, had a big accident in stage 5 which brought their rally to a sudden and dramatic end. Sadly Tom broke two ribs and Will was left rather sore and the car was a bit of a mess.

Matt Edwards and Darron Garrod continued their recent domination of British rallying with a third victory on the spin in the Swift Group Fiesta R5.

Paul said: “Despite some long delays due to some unforeseen incidents most competitors enjoyed the day.”