Last weekend saw the 19th running of the SGC Printing Harry Flatters Rally run on the military ranges of Epynt in mid Wales. The weather threatened all weekend to cause havoc on the fast and demanding tarmac roads but failed to deliver and problems, although this did not mean that the all the competitors had a trouble free run!

John Dalton and Gwynfor Jones in their Darrian T90 GTR where the first of the casualties having problems over the first stage and not making it to the finish of the second. This left Melvyn Evans and Gareth Roberts in their 2004 Subaru Impreza WRC to lead the event by 36.4 seconds from the Get Connected! Hyundai of Damian Cole and Ella Flynn.

They where to take over the lead on stage 6 when the Impreza of Melvyn Evans and Gareth Roberts hit problems, but with less than a second between them and the next chasing Impreza of Lloyd and Handley the battle was on for the overall honours.

The deciding stage of the event in the battle for the lead turned out to be special stage 8 when the Hyundai suffered from transmission problems over the whole stage and caused the pair to eventually finish the event 7.8 seconds behind the winning crew of Peter Lloyd and Graham Handley.

Eian Pritchard and Martin Jones completed the top three in their imaculate 98 WRC North Road Garage Impreza, loosing out to the second placed crew by just under a second.

So once again the ranges of Epynt proved to be a challenge to far for some crews proving that a good knowledge of the demanding dips and crests are essential.

Results Top 5

Peter Lloyd Graham Handley     Subaru Impreza WRC      1:04:10.8
Damian Cole Ella Flynn              Hyundai Accent WRC      1:04:18.6
Eian Pritchard Martin Jones       Subaru Impreza WRC       1:04:19.2
Simon Mauger Tracy Giddings   Ford Escort                     1:05:41.5
Bob Fowden Kevin Lewis           Subaru Impreza               1:06:34.2