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The battle for the Protyres Motorsport UK Asphalt Rally Championship title would rage on at JDS Machinery Rally Ceredigion. The pretty Welsh seaside town of Aberystwyth would play host to Round 7, the penultimate round of the 2024 Championship, where a 3-day closed road event would deliver a dominant performance for one of the championship contenders.
The Protyre Motorsport UK would relocate from Argyll, Scotland to Llandovery, Wales for the sixth round of its 2024 Championship. A staple in the series, the Nigel Ferguson Tour Of Epynt Rally, Organised by the Port Talbot Motor Club would once again see the Asphalt protagonists go wheel to wheel on the infamous smooth roads of the military ranges over a two-day affair.
In Powys, Wales, situated between Brecon and Llandovery and to the North of the A40 which links the two, lies an area called Mynydd Epynt. This area forms the core of the MOD Sennybridge Training Area (SENTA) but is known to many in our world simply as “Epynt”.
Epynt has a rich history in British and indeed Welsh motorsport and we the rallying world look fondly upon it. It has played host to countless stage rallies over the years, the RAC Rally and has hosted Britain’s round of the World Rally Championship (WRC) throughout the nineties and noughties.
Organised by the Quinten Motor Cub and Sponsored by the world-famous co-driver and his motorsports equipment business since 2011 the Nicky Grist stages is based in the Market town of Builth Wells with its picturesque service area on the rugby pitch and overlooking the river Wye. The battleground would be the range of familiar stages in the Halfway, monument Crychan and Lyn Login areas of the Epynt military ranges to the south of Builth Wells.
The 2024 Protyre MUK Asphalt Rally Championship continued its Scottish tour, moving northeast to the scenic Cowal Peninsula for the fifth round of the championship.
The Argyll Rally, run by the experienced members of the Mull Automobile Club, boasted significant expertise in organizing closed-road events and had prepared an outstanding event for 2024. Based once again at Dunoon Stadium, this year’s weekend offered 75 stage miles of top-class closed-road rallying, spread over two days. After two runs through the fan-favorite Dunoon Town Centre on Friday, five stages in the surrounding countryside lay ahead, several under the cover of darkness. This was followed by a further eleven stages on Saturday.
As the Protyres BTRDA Rally Series has now passed the mid-point in the 2024 season, we can begin to build a picture of the runners and riders who are potentially in line for championship awards. With fierce battles across the field to date, the series would return to Builth Wells, Powys in Wales for the second time this year for the Nicky Grist Stages.
Based out of the auction mart in Hexham, the former Pirelli (international) Rally, previously a classic staple of the Probite British Rally Championship calendar during the glory years of British rallying. The event can count a plethora of famous winners as diverse as Ari Vattinen or Russell Brookes to Richard Burns, Dai Llewellyn and Mark Higgins… As well as the full complement of McRaes (Alistair, Jimmy and Colin).
All set for a great days rallying across the 3 main Protyre BTRDA Gravel Championships the KFR would utilise 42 miles of prime gravel stages in the 155,000-acre Kielder forest complex, one of Europe’s largest man-made forests.
Returning to the Asphalt for the third round of the 2024 Motorsport UK, Probite British Rally Championship, the Beatson’s Building Supplies Jim Clark Rally (May 24/25) would provide 87 competitive stage miles, over 14 stages and across two days.
From the Scottish border town of Duns, Berwickshire, the Jim Clark Rally has been a mainstay in the British Rally Championship since it first joined the series in the late nineteen nineties. It has always delivered ample drama and has proved to be a challenge for the competitors time and time again, this year was no exception.
The Motorsport UK FUCHs Lubricants British Historic Rally Championship would venture to the picturesque Cowal Peninsula in Scotland for the sixth round of its 2024 season.
The Dunoon Presents Argyll Rally has earned a good reputation among the Asphalt Championship fraternity since it joined their series back in 2022. When speaking to Xlerate ahead of the season, BHRC Championship Manager Colin Heppinstall talked of how he wanted to add “well-known” Asphalt events with “good reputations” to the expanded Championship calendar this year and the Argyll along with the Manx were the ones that everyone “loved” or “raved about”.