GT and Cad

The weekend of the 30th-31st of July saw Knighton motor club hold their Pacemaker rally, a rally that would run under a navigational permit rather than a road rally permit, a move which the organisers would hope encourage more entries, so it was to be a slight disappointment as there was only 55 crews on the entry list, but for those who turned up to the start car park in Knighton were greeted with a fantastic rally, which will hopefully see a larger entry next year. In amongst the entrants representing Lampeter and District motor club were Cadog Davies, who would be navigating for last year’s winner, Mark “GT” Roberts, in the well-known purple VW Golf GTI. Just a few places down at number six were current club championship leading navigator Dafydd Evans, who was navigating for Jordan Summers in a Ford Puma. Three cars further down the entry list was Dafydd father, Edryd, once again driving his Honda Civic Type R, who had Richard “Tyson” Morris navigating.

          The rally had a route of some 117 miles on metalled and un-metalled roads all on OS map 137, with the route crossing the border between Wales and England. The rally began with Mark GT and Cadog leaving the start car park for the first 75 miles of competition before a fuel halt at Church Stoke, and immediately set the pace with a string of fastest times, not surprisingly they held a fifty-five second lead at the halfway fuel halt from the similar car, and current welsh champions, Ian “dude” Roberts and Gwawr Hughes. To be nearly a minute up on the “dude” and Gwawr after half an event was no small feat! Also going well were Jordan and Dafydd, getting many excellent times and featuring in the top 10 at the half way fuel halt, as did Edryd and Richard who were currently tenth.

 

The second half was slightly shorter than the first, but no less challenging, and Mark “GT” and Cadog continued as they started, putting in even more fastest times, in fact they set fastest time on every time on every time control, which come the finish gave them a fantastic win, six and a half minutes ahead of second place finishers, a fantastic result, and the second in two rallies for Cadog. Jordan and Dafydd went on to set some excellent and would have finished third overall, but unfortunately they picked up a fail, which dropped them down to seventeenth. Finishing one place behind also with a fail was Edryd Evans and Richard “Tyson” Morris, which was unfortunate as they would have been eighth overall, but on this event finishing alone was an achievement in itself as from the fifty cars that left the start car park, only twenty-seven made it to the end of this tough but enjoyable event.