RALLY OF THE MIDLANDS 20/21ST JUNE 2008
Round five of the Heart of England Rally Championship and our second go at this unique Midlands based event With a good run last year finishing 30th o/a and 4th in class we were hoping for a good finish in this yrs event. Although seeded a lowly 65 which we were dissappointed with (despite complaining to the orgainsers our seeding had to remain) we decide to make best of our chance to gain much needed points in the Heart of England championship. Our event started on the Friday evening with a couple of runs through Merivale , followed by Argents Mead in Hinckley and then two more stages at Mallory with a final run through Argents Mead late on as dusk fell. The Friday stages were all good and by the end of leg one we had moved up to an impressive 43rd overall, passing a good number of much higher seeded cars. So much for our seeding at 65.!
Saturday morning dawned to the sound of heavy rain. Well thats no surprise to those competing in June on this event!!
With a quick auxilary service to change tyres and also a quick attempt to cure a worsening mis fire we were off to Merivale for two more runs through Private grounds. The stages were very slippery and Sian did well to stay on the black stuff.
Many cars came to grief including Matt Beebe in his MG (rolling it) and several of the front runners spinning off into the undergrowth. We finished these atages in 41st position and the had a quick road section to our first visit to MIRA.
We enjoy the MIRA stages, very technical with adverse cambers, hills, water splash etc , combined with long fast straights makes for very entertaining driving. However our rally was to end on this stage in an undramatic but never the less catastrophic way.
8 miles into the stage as we drove out of a tight hairpin left there was a loud bang under the near side and we lost all drive.
Our rally ended at this point as we had broken a driveshaft. We tried to coax the 205 back to the end of the stage using a combination of pushing, light throttle to allow the LSD to take up , but we considered that we were going to be a danger to fellow competitors by blocking the stage at tight intersections and had no option but to throw in the towel.
So it was wait for recovery, then a tow back to service where we stayed for the remainder of the event.
So in summary a major disappointment and no points for the championship!!

WELSH INTERNATIONAL RALLY 4TH MAY 2008
Round Three of the Heart of England Rally Championship and our first visit to Epynt in  a competitive situation.
We have spectated for many years at Epynt Military Ranges nr Brecon in Mid Wales  and fully appreciate how difficult this event was going to be both on car and crew. Over  170 miles in total , 13 stages  all on fast tight tarmac military roads with no room for error. To come off the road at Epynt usually means at best the end of your event with minor car damage and a vehicle needing recovery or at worst a totally destroyed car and injured crew. For anyone interested type in Epynt+ Rally on  You tube and you can get to see some very spectacular action.
However our aim for this event was to finish at all costs to gain maximum championship points from this round. No heroics and no going off the road! We spent the Saturday afternoon reccying the stage routes and making our own pace notes. This took over four hours plus much discussion well into the Saturday evening after scrutineering and signing on in  Brecon. We were seeded car 73 in a field of 120 and although in the last third of the running order felt that we were good to go on Sunday morning.
Up bright and cheerful , if not a little apprehensive! We arrived in Brecon  at the Theatre Brynchnyog  for our due start at 8.19am. Once waved off from the ceremonial start we had a 25 mile run  on public roads to out first stage of the day. Along the way we managed to call into Service for a quick fluid/ tyre check  and then off to stage 1. This was the longest of the day at over 20 miles and would include all the most notorious routes/ jumps and "blind" crests that this venue can throw at the teams. Such names as Devils leap, the Steps, Dixies are places of legend in the rally world. We expected it to be an exhausting stage and we were not wrong. The pace notes worked well and we felt we had a good turn of speed until around 12 miles into the stage when we were flagged down by marshals. There was a car on fire further up the stage ahead of us and we had to allow the fire/ rescue truck to get to the incident. This meant that for approx 10 teams we had to drive the remainder of the stage at "normal " road speed and exit the stage to gain a "notional time". This was disappointing as we were keen to see how we had coped with this unusually long stage , but "hey ho" that’s rallying!. The car only needed a brief check in service and we were soon back out onto stage 2 in good time.
The stages during the morning went without incident Sian's confidence in both the pace notes and her ability grew stage by stage , indeed by stage 7 we were catching up the cars in front of us which gave us much more confidence in our abilties. By lunchtime and with plenty of effort we had moved up to 48th position. A brief lunch  halt and another service check on the car and we we off for the afternoon stages. In general these were a reverse run of the mornings stages and it threw up some  interesting "flat left over crest" moments. Still we stayed on the black stuff and ran a consistent rally to finish 40th overall and 9th in class.  We finally finished at Brecon HQ in a typically Welsh downpour!
Considering it was our first time at Epynt we were very pleased with the result and we have gained  good points from the event in our championship as we finished third highest Heart of England competitor.  This means that we now lead the championship after three rounds overall, in our class and in the front wheel drive challenge sections. Sian is again leading under 21 yr old driver.
So we have everything to play for on the remaining events for 2008, our next outing is the Rally of the Midlands, based in Hinckley on the 20/21st June. Please come along and support us on our most local event this season.
THANK YOU to our sponsors, service crew  and to our supporters for trekking down to Wales last weekend it was good to have some support "on event"
Also a big thank you to Andy Baker at AB Motorsport for preparing and looking after our 205.

AGBO RALLY 9TH March 2008
A short report  on our latest event, round one of The Web Benefit Heart of England Championship.
Well we  were all up at around 3.30am to get to Weston Park for Scrutineering  at our allocated time of 6.00am!
The "Milkman" shift came around all too early on Sunday morning especially as Hywel was suffering from a bad head cold and Ben and Callum ( service ) had been out until 3.00am on a night out in Leicester!
We had a trouble free run from Lutterworth up to Telford and once having dropped off the trailer went to scrutineering at our allocated time of  very early o'clock! Once through noise and scrutineering we proceeded to signing on and then a very welcome cuppa back in service. Our start time was 8.15 am and for the first few stages Hywel was about as much use in the co drivers seat as a sack of spuds!.
Anyway we had a good run on the first few stages learning the general layout of the venue and getting to know the technical sections where previous cars had thrown lots of mud onto the road, making conditions very tricky, especially where the sun had yet to dry off the surface.
Also as Matador have now stopped Motorsport tyre production (We  had recently done a cracking deal with the importer!! sods law as usual) we had to make a last minute change in tyre supplier. After much searching around we settled on using some TOYO tyres for the first few events of 2008. The tyres proved really good once Sian has got confident with them and our stage times in the afternoon got better and better. Unfortunately because we drove cautiously during the morning stages we lost a good deal of time to our fellow class runners and at one point had dropped to 67th o/a. However with some good runs in the afternoon , Hywel feeling better as the paracetamol kicked in we finished a somewhat disappointing 58th o/a .
From a shakedown point of view the day was a success as we have now got confidence in the new tyres and feel that they are better than the Matadors we used to run and not far behind the Dunlops that we have used a couple of time (Dunlops are considered the premium moulded slick but at over £130 per corner out of reach of most clubmen budgets!)
Big thank you to the organisers, marshals and of course our crew , looking forward to our next run out at MIRA. ( Horiba D'Isis stages) on 12th April.
New engine end of March , 165bhp 1600cc running full group A spec including Webbers and fully mapable engine managment so we should be really flying at MIRA!
Regards
Sian,Hywel and the crew at RDR
Next event MIRA on April 12th , then a "biggy" The Welsh on May 4th at Epynt, Mid Wales. .