rally north wales dylan llion

It has been yet a very busy weekend once again for members of Lampeter and District motor club as events have taken place through ought Wales, with the Rally North wales rally taking place in the forests of North Wales on the Saturday the 1st of April, the Night Owl Road rally taking place over the Saturday night (1st/2nd of April) in the lanes of Ceredigion and the Tour of Caerwent taking place on the Sunday the 2nd or April down in south Wales.

                First event of the weekend was the North Wales rally services Rally North Wales, an event promoted by Wolverhampton and south Staffordshire car club, and would be the second round of the Pirelli MSA welsh forestry rally championship and also the second round of the Jelf Motorsport Welsh clubman’s forest rally championship. The rally would be based in Dolgellau and consist of some 45 stages miles made up from six stages in Dyfi and Gartheiniog forests.

                Lampeter and district motor club were represented by Andy Davies seeded at car 4 in his familiar Subaru Impreza group N car, and he was once again accompanied by Max Freeman, they were hoping to compete for group N honours on this event once again. Right behind them at 5 were the other Subaru Impreza of Red kite stages winning pairing or Dylan Davies and Llion Williams, they were also hoping to be competing for a strong result following their recent success. A few places down at 23 were Meirion Evans and Jonathon Jackson in a Peugeot 208 R2, who were hoping to get some more miles under their belt with the still new car. So, there was good club representation amongst the 106 entrants and potential for success in class and overall honours.

                Garth West was the first stage of the day, and all Lampeter and district motor club representatives began the day in excellent form, as they all featured in the top 15 times on the first stage, Garth West, with Dylan and Llion doing best from club members, as they set fifth fastest time, 11 minutes and 1 second. This was good enough for third in class. Just behind them in sixth fastest was Andy, who posted a time of 11 minutes and 9 seconds, which saw him take the lead in his class. Meirion and Jonathon also found themselves beginning their day by taking their day by taking their class lead, as they posted joint fifteenth fastest time, 11 minutes and 45 seconds, a great start to the day’s stages for the club members.

                The second stage of the day was called Big Ray 1, and once again club members did excellent times, with Dylan and Llion setting an excellent joint second fastest time on this stage with 5 minutes and 4 seconds, this saw them climb up to fourth overall after the first two stages. Andy managed to set seventh fastest time on this stage, on 5 minutes and 10 seconds, this kept them in sixth overall after the day’s opening pair of stages. Meirion and Jonathon set a great time of 5 minutes and 26 seconds, this gave them joint thirteenth quickest on this stage, and saw them ling in fifteenth overall.

                Stage 3 was Dyfi West, and once again Dylan and Llion set a third fastest stage time, lifting them into third overall also, an excellent performance by them. Andy was just behind once again in his impreza with fourth quickest overall, which although didn’t see him rise from sixth overall in the event standings, it did see him open up a lead in the group N class, which now stood at over a minute. Meirion and Jonathon posted fifteenth overall quickest time on this stage, and saw them move up to fourteenth overall in the rally’s overall standings.

                Garth East was stage 4 and it was business as usual for Dylan and Llion with another excellent third overall on this stage, Dylan and Llion showing the same incredibly quick and consistent form that saw them win the Red kite a few weeks previously. Andy again put in sixth fastest time on the fourth stage, which now saw him lifted into fifth overall, and now stretching his lead in Group N to a minute and fifty seconds. Meirion and Jonathon managed twenty-first on this stage, which kept them in fourteenth overall and they also held a good lead in their class of over a minute.

                It was back to Big Ray for stage 5, Big Ray 2, where the super consistent pairing of Dylan and Llion managed yet another third quickest stage time! This kept them comfortably in third overall standings. Andy had a minor slide off on this stage when the car locked up coming into a corner, and needed to be pushed back onto the road, the car being completely fine with the only damage being a loss of time, this meant on this stage they had joint forty second quickest time, this dropped them down to eighth overall, but he still held a comfortable lead in his class. Meirion and Jonathon had another very good stage and set fourteenth quickest time, but dropped to fifteenth overall in the rally’s standings, so with all Lampeter members doing well and only one stage to go hopefully all would work out nicely.

                Dyfi east was to be the final stage of the day, and third quickest was once again where Dylan and Llion found themselves in what must have been one of the most consistent drives of the whole rally. Andy recovered from his minor slide to set a set fifth quickest time on the final stage, where Meirion and Jonathon ended their great day with joint seventeenth.

                It was great to see all club members finish the rally, and all in great positions too, with Dylan and LLion finishing an excellent third overall, with third in class and second in the welsh forestry championship, a mega impressive result, especially as Dylan had been battling with gear selection issues on three of the day’s stages resulting in difficulty selecting gears. Andy with his navigator Max achieved and excellent eighth overall and first in Group N in their impreza, an excellent result for them. Meirion and Jonathon achieved an excellent fifteenth overall in their 208, also achieving first in class, and getting some good miles in on the new car.

                With excellent results achieved on the first event of the weekend it was off to Aberystwyth of the second event of the weekend, where the fifth round of the welsh road rally championship, the night owl was to be taking place. A rally of some 110 miles made up on OS maps 135 and 146.

                Lampeter and district motor club were well represented with the first representative being Cadog Davies who was navigating in car 4, a Mk2 ford escort for Richard Williams, together they have been previous winners of this event and were hoping to do very well once again. Behind them at 6 was Andy Davies, who drove straight from the North Wales rally back to pick up the other Subaru Impreza rally car, IDZ before heading back up to Aberystwyth for his second event of the weekend. He was teamed up with Lee Taylor for this event. It was a pari of Evans’ next from Lampeter, with Edryd Evans out once again in his Honda civic type R, he had Bro caron event secretary Dorian Evans with him on map duties. They were to take up spot thirteen. Right behind them at fourteen was the now regular pairing of Jordan Summers and Dafydd Evans who were again out in the ford puma. Justin Davies was the next club member, he was navigating in car 15, a blue Mk2 ford escort, he was navigating for Chris Hand. At 24 was George Eadon, who was once again navigating for James Davies, and they were hoping to repeat their excellent Bro Caron result. Anthony Lichfield and Llion “tratctor” Williams were out in a Proton Satria, they were seeded at 33, Llion also be Llion’s second event of the weekend having had an excellent result with Dylan on the North Wales rally. Rhodz Lewis and Rhodri Williams were the next club members, who were out once again in their Citroen Saxo. They were seeded at 66. The last club representatives were Huw and Owen Rowcliffe, they were down in 80, and out in a Vauxhall corsa.

                The first section of the rally began in Clarach and headed north up to Talybon through Dolbont, where the real action of the rally began, with the first tight section of the night just outsife of Furnace, where the route headed back towards Talybont, and included a couple of “white” roads.

                Time control 4 was in this section, and was timed to the minute, Richard and Cadog picked up 1 minute of penalties over this section, as did Andy and Lee, George and James, Anthony and Llion. Huw and Owen had 3 minutes. Edryd and Dorian picked up 5 and the two Rhodri’s picked up 6. It was an early night for Jordan and Dafydd as they retired early on. Chris and Justin also had an early night, as the fuel tank burst on their puma.

                There were to be a few tight sections in the first half, with roughly half of them timed to the minute and the other half timed to the second.

At the halfway Petrol halt in Aberaeron, it was Andy and Lee that were doing best among club members, as they lay in second overall with a penalty count of 3 minutes and 48 seconds, only twenty-nine seconds down on the leading car, who happened to be Bro Caron winner Kevin Davies. Richard and Cadog were right behind Andy as they held third, with 5 minutes and 28 seconds. Anthony and LLion were in seventh on 6 minutes and 32 seconds. James and George were ninth on 7 minutes 13 seconds. Huw and Owen Rowcliffe were in twenty-sixth with 18 minutes and 56 seconds, Edryd and Dorian were in forty-fifth as they had picked up a fail, as had the two Rhodri’s, they were in forty-ninth.

With one half down and another still to run it was game on for everyone as there were still plenty of tight sections to come and plenty of challenged for both driver and navigator. The next tight section was to be coming in to Time control 22, and everyone picked up penalties here. By now Andy and Lee were really pushing as they picked up 1 minute 17 seconds at this control. Most competitors had well in excess of a minute and a half at this control, so any time under this showed that they were really pushing.

With a few more difficult sections following crews made their way to the final time control (TC34) where again everyone picked up penalties, with this complete all surviving crews headed to the finish venue where they handed in their time cards and discussed the night’s action over a well-earned breakfast. Andy and Lee manged an excellent second overall in the Impreza, only six seconds off the winning car, a great way to end a weekend for Andy in both his Impreza’s. Richard and Cadog had achieved an excellent fifth overall, and could have been even better as they had an early arrival penalty at one of the time controls. Anthony and Llion also finished well inside the top ten with seventh overall in their Proton. Huw and Owen Rowcliffe had a good second half and finished in twenty-eighth. James and George picked up a fail in the second half so finished down in thirty second, had they of not had a fail then they would have matched their Bro Caron performance and finished sixth. Rhodz Lewis and Rhodri Williams finished in thirty seventh. Simply getting to the finish on a Welsh road rally championship event is an achievement in itself so to have crews putting in the performances that were achieved shows although Lampeter may not be the largest club it’s a club that certainly doesn’t lack talent. The next round of the welsh road rally championship is the Newtown and District automobile club organised Eagle road rally which takes place on the 3rd and 4th of June.

The final rally of the weekend was to be the Forresters Car club organised Tour of Caerwent, a single venue tarmac rally made up of six tarmac stages. Once again Lampeter were well represented on the entry list, with Ian Davies driving car 30, a BMW M3 who had Ryland James navigating. Malcolm Jones and Rhys Jones were at 43, in a Peugeot 206 cup car. Jonathon Davies and Kevin Davies were another Peugeot 206, they were at 59. Rounding off a trio of Peugeot 206s were Wayne Jones and Steffan Daniels running at 65.

On the day’s opening stage, it was Malcolm and Rhys that set the quickest time amongst club members, and were in twenty-seventh overall. Jonathon and Kevin were next as they set thirty-sixth overall. Wayne and Steffan were in fortieth and Ian and Ryland managed fifty second.

The second stage of the day was of a similar length as the first stage and once again club members did very well, with Malcolm and Rhys holding on to twenty-seventh overall. Wayne and Steffan climbed up to thirty-third, and John and Kevin were in thirty-ninth. Ian and Ryland had climbed up to forty-thrid.

The day remained dry and conditions were great, enabling crews to push hard over the stages. At the end of the day’s stages it was Malcolm and Rhys Jones that were first club finishers, as they achieved nineteenth overall and first in the road rally car class. Jonathan Davies and Kevin Davies were next in twenty-seventh overall, and second in the road rally car class. Ian Davies and Ryland James were next in the M3 with thirtieth overall and first in their class. Unfortunately Wayne and Steffan retired as the drive shaft of their 206 broke on the last stage, a great shame as they had been enjoying an excellent battle amongst the 206 trio.

 Many thanks to Phil Griffiths for the use of his image