Cornwall driver Alan Cookson and London co-driver Julian Wilkinson had some bad luck at the weekend as an incident meant they failed to finish the Rallye Sunseeker (22-23 February).

The pair had been enjoying a good run on the Bournemouth-based forest gravel event in their SparCornwall.com, SparDevon.com, VK Vodka Kick, Riverside Property Services and Kumho Tyres-supported Subaru Impreza World Rally Car (WRC) and were up to an impressive 10th overall before their rally came to a premature end on stage nine, the Grid Law test.

The crew left the road when all five wheel studs sheered off at the front driver’s side and the wheel parted company with the car, causing them to go off into the scenery. The car pirouetted on its nose before coming to a halt and although the damage was mainly superficial, it was enough to finish their event.

The Rallye Sunseeker was the first round of the MSA National Gravel Rally Championship for Cookson and Wilkinson and they had got off to a promising start as they were up to 12th overall after the first two stages on Friday night and less than four seconds off the lead.

The pair had risen up to seventh by stage five and survived a spin in stage six in front of the crowds, which saw them slip to eighth as they lost around eight seconds. They dropped back down the order to 10th after stage eight before the incident ended their day but despite the retirement, Cookson remained positive.

“We were absolutely loving the event, the stages were great fun and the car was finally doing what it says on the tin, which was great, and to be honest we were getting more and more dialed into it when the wheel parted company and felt like we were on for a good result,” Cookson said.

“We had done lots of work with the diffs on the car after the problem on the Wyedean and it just felt brilliant and it was probably the best fun I’ve had in a car since getting back into the sport three years ago.  

“Even though we had the accident, which was of course disappointing, I still left the event thinking we had a good time and set some times that were competitive which proved to us we can be on a reasonable pace, all we need now is some good luck.

“It was a well organised event and everyone involved needs a big congratulations on putting on a fabulous weekend of rallying.”

Cookson and Wilkinson now have six weeks to repair their Subaru WRC Spares-prepared Impreza ahead of round two of the MSA Gravel Rally Championship, the Border Counties Rally, on Saturday 5 April.