Action packed month of March!!

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"Mad Mick" and Dale Furniss on the Mid Wales Stages - Photo courtesy of A&A Photography

     The first weekend of March saw an action packed weekend with three rallying events being held in both disciplines of stage and road rallying. The weekend saw mixed fortunes for the club members competing over the weekend of the 5th/6th of March with some club members achieving some excellent results whilst others suffered some bad luck.

     The Malcolm Wilson Rally held in Cockermouth,Cumbria, was the first event to kickstart the fully subscribed weekend. The rally was the second round of the BTRDA Gravel Rally Championship and club members Dylan Davies /Dale Furniss were debuting their newly aquired Subaru Impreza N10 Group N rally car stepping up to 4 wheel drive from the rear wheel drive Ford Escort Mk1. The event was the first of two events that the pair were competing on over the weekend and the rallies were being used to build confidence and speed in the new car which would require a totally different driving style from the ever sideways Escort. The pair finished the event in a respectable 15th O/a on the event against a very strong entry of several other experienced crews. With the event over a long journey was to procede back to Newtown to compete on the Mid Wales Stages the following morning although they were to go their seperate ways with Dale co-driving for "Mad Mick" and Dylan having Mark Glennster on the notes for the Sunday stages.

     Saturday night in Brecon was to host the second round of the WAMC Road Rally Championship with the Gremlin Road Rally. With new organisers taking the helm and a much shorter route than previous years,with no jogularity the event attracted close to a capacity entry of 90 cars.

     Daniel "Lwni" Jones went one step better on the event with a convincing win with a winning margin of just under a minute ahead of second place. The win meant Daniel took another maximum points haul from the event giving him an early lead after two events in the championship. Stefan Davies and Mark Rodway continued their fine form on recent events when they finished 12th O/a on the event which leaves them 12th and 10th in the Road Rally championship standing respectively. Marc Hughes took a well deserved 1st in the Semi Experts class and 14th O/a navigating for Elliot Grey in the Peugeot 205. Daniel Stone finished 28th O/a whilst navigating for Stuart Caine in the Ford Escort Mk2 whilst Chris Palmer and George Eadon finished 30th O/a although a penalty for booking in early dropped them down the results.

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Dan "Lwni" on the way to Gremlin victory in his Escort - Photo Courtesy of A&A Photography

     As the Gremlin road rally crews headed for home, Sunday morning brought the start to the Mid Wales Stages rally in Newtown. The event once again took in some classice Welsh forest with crews tackling Hafren,Sweet Lamb,Myherin and Tarenig. Dale Furniss was to finish the highest placed LDMC member on the event when he guided "Mad Mick" Jones in his Honda powered Escort Mk2 to an excellent 5th O/a claiming class honours and the first two-wheel drive on the event. Eryl Evans finished 8th O/a with no dramas whilst co-driving for Keith Parry in the Subaru Impreza. The result sees Eryl lie second overall in the Welsh Clubmans standing after two events. Unfortunatly for Dylan Davies lady luck wasn't to be on his side when the engine on the Subaru gave way middway through stage 2 with a broken cam belt being the cause of the problem. Tomas Davies wouldn't fair much better either when a hole in the Historic Ford Escort Mk2 lead to an early retirement on the morning stages.

     The following Sunday (13th of March) saw just one LDMC crew head down to Brecon to compete on the Tour of Epynt stages. Unfortunatly for Sean Crowley and Marc Mayes, a hard landing after a jump early on in the opening stage of the event saw the crank sensor of the Vauxhall Nova come loose and the car cut out. Substanial time was lost trying to find the problem and the crew would retire on SS1. However, the pair did complete the Trophy Rally held on the final two stages of the rally for crews that had retired before the midday service which they went on to win comfortably by over a minute and half.

     Harlech and District Motor Club held the Rali Llyn road rally on the 19/20th of March where four Lampeter Motor Club members heading up to North Wales for the event. Kevin Davies and Dale Furniss once again put in an excellent performance to finish in a fine second overall and first in class behind local crew Arwel "Sbidi" and Dylan John, both crews in Ford Escort Mk2's. Anothny Litchfield finished 18th O/a navigating for Gwynfor Evans in a Peugeot 306 whilse Debbie Furniss was close behind in 20th O/a navigating for Merfyn Hughes in a Vauxhall Astra.

     Tomas Davies was also competing on the West Cork stages in the Emerald Isle in his Tarmac spec Escort Mk2. A slow start on the opening day of the event saw Tomas and co-driver Eurig Davies lying in 12th O/a and second in class some 40 seconds down on the class leader. However a big push on the second day of the rally saw Tomas claw back the defecit to the class leader to just four seconds heading into the final stage which was just 1.5 miles long. A big push on the final stage in an effort to take the class victory unfortunatly saw Tomas overshoot on a junction and stall the car losing a further three seconds. Tomas and Eurig still finished an excellent 8th O/a and 2nd in class on the rally.

     The Fast Impressions Tour of  Caerwent rally would be the final event to close off a rally packed month of March. Sean Crowley and Marc Mayes had a brilliant start to the event when they were lying as high as 7th O/a in their Vauxhall Nova. Lady luck wasn't on their side once again and they dropped down the overall results when they hit a kerb and bending the rear axle on stage 4 before the gearbox on the Nova packed in on the final stage which dropped them to a final position of 17th O/a and 2nd in class.  Iwan Mayes finished the highest placed LDMC member in 10th O/a also finishing 2nd in class albeit with problems of his own, the gearbox on the Escort only selecting three gears for two whole stages. Wyn "Cribyn" Thomas made a return to the stages in his Ford Escort Mk2 with stage rally newbie Thomas Lloyd in the co-drivers seat. The pair finished 19th O/a and 7th in their class.