IT was a perfect start for local co-driver Will Rogers, finishing 7th overall and winning the production class by over eight minutes, alongside Matt Edwards, on last weekend’s Mid Wales Stages, in the Swift Group Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 9.

Paul Willetts told the Ross Gazette that the opening round of the all new British Rally Championship arrived in the picturesque Mid-Wales town of Newtown, and attracted a high quality entry of 75 crews for two days of action in the classic welsh forests of Hafren, Myherin and Tarenig.

Heavy overnight snow on the Thursday night and freezing temperatures had made conditions extremely treacherous as the crews left Newtown for two stages in darkness on Saturday evening.

With stage conditions very difficult, due to not knowing where the snow and ice lay, Edwards stopped the clocks 7th quickest after 16 miles of Hafren. Next up was nine miles of Pikes Peak, one of the world’s great stages, but this time it was covered in patchy snow, ice and in darkness, but it held no fears for the North Walian driver, who was the 4th quickest, to hold 6th place overall overnight.

“It was difficult, but we gelled well, and were pleased to be in the mix with the far superior R5 cars,” said Rogers.

Sunday’s leg consisted of just four stages. An overnight thaw left conditions a little easier, although patches of icy lay in wait for the those not fully awake.

The duo wanted to try and consolodate their position; the opening two morning tests saw two consistent stage times, but on the re-run of the previous night’s 16 mile Hafren test, the duo lost time due to roughness of the roads.

“We lost time in there, it’s very rough now and the suspension on the Evo was not as good as the R5 cars,” Rogers told the Gazette.

The duo were 9th quickest on the final eight mile Myherin test which saw the crew come home 7th overall and 1st production class crew home, winning this by over eight minutes. Rogers said: “We are pleased with the result, we’ve shown we can mix it with the R5 cars. It’s been a really tough event in difficult conditions at times, we caught the Swedish guy in the Mitsubishi R5 on most of Sunday’s stages as well.”

The event was won by M-Sport’s Elfyn Evans in the DMack Tyres Fiesta Evo R5 from Swedish star, Frederik Ahlin in a similar car, with another Welsh star, Tom Cave, in the Spencer Sport Fiesta, making it a podium clean sweep for the blue oval.

The event had been worthy of its inclusion in the new British Championship; the organisers did an excellent job, given the testing weather thrown at them 36 hours before the rally start.

In the National B event, which ran over four stages on Sunday and formed part of the Welsh National championship, saw Ben Friend, with Cliff Simmons, take 7th overall, 2nd historic car home in the Allglass Escort RS1800.

Meanwhile, Roger Matthews and Tom Marrott got thier RAC Asphalt championship campaign off to the best possible start with a class win on the Bovingdon Stages.

The two day event offered 12 special stages on the tank proving ground totalling some 80 miles. But it wasn’t all plain sailing for the duo, with the starter motor failing on stage three, and what they thought was a broken link bar on stage ten, which turned out to be nothing more than a loose exhaust, but six minutes were lost limping out of the stage, and they plummeted down the leaderboard to finish an eventful 38th overall.

The next round of the series sees crews head to Belgium for the Salamander Rally on April 23rd - 24th.