BHRC / RD2 / RALLY NORTH WALES 2024
04/04/2024Words and Feature Photo By Andrew Scott
The third Saturday of March saw crews descend on the market town of Welshpool for the second round of the MotorsportUK Fuchs Lubricants British Historic Rally Championship, Get Jerky Rally North Wales.
Mid-February had seen a very wet and soggy round 1 in Yorkshire, The Riponian, an event that left as many questions as it answered. George Lepley and Dale Bowen took the overall BHRC win in their Mitsubishi Galant VR-4 but were unable to score towards the overall championship in their recently homologated 4WD Grp A machine. Therefore, this left Yorkshire man Matthew Robinson and Northern Irishman Adrian Hetherington heading the championship standings from the returning (to BHRC) former champion Ben Friend in third.
Sign-on and Scrutineering took place on Friday, in and around the grounds of Welshpool Livestock Sales. Much of the talk centered on the recently announced news that former triple British Rally Champion Mark Higgins would be replacing BRC-bound Chris Ingram in David Appleby’s stunning Triumph TR7 works replica. Not only that, the entry list saw another legendary BRC name competing, one who won the BRC one year before Higgins. Gwyndaf Evans was to compete in his Blue Ford Escort Mk2. The same car previously rolled on Rally Ceredigion in 2022. However, unlike Ingram, neither would be registered for championship honors. Other conversations heard around the grounds honed in on the 2024 schedule with a generally positive view of the sequential tarmac rounds in the middle of the championship, most crews were excited to do the Manx but non-comital on the other rounds.
PHOTOS BY ANDREW SCOTT
LEG 1, STAGES 1-4
As Saturday dawned bright and sunny in Welshpool, the crews were flagged off the start ramp in Welshpool facing a demanding 8 stages and 45 stage miles across some classic forest roads in Mid Wales. Double passes in the Dyfi and Gartheiniog forest complex north of Machynlleth and a further 4 runs, split into east and west stages in Dyfnant forest.
However the optimism over weather conditions was not to last, with forecast rain coming earlier than expected and making for some very tricky and slippery conditions throughout the morning and particularly the afternoon as “almost” biblical levels of rain left the stages sodden, all involved wondering what happened to that big orange ball they saw in the sky just a few hours earlier.
“When we left Welshpool it was lovely, completely different here”
Adrian Hetherington
As the crews headed west from Welshpool for the opening leg, SS1 saw a quick blast through the fast and sweeping 5.5-mile test in Gartheiniog forest. In much the same manner as the Riponian, George Lepley and Dale Bowen were quickest out the blocks in their 4WD Gallant, setting the fastest stage time of five minutes fifty-one seconds.
“It wasn’t supposed to be raining when I looked at the weather forecast this morning. I nearly put my suncream on but er, no brilliant stage. I really really enjoyed it and started to get a bit of a flow in second, third, and fourth gear corners”
George Lepley
The second fastest BHRC registered runner through SS1 was Nick Elliot and Dave Price in the Fiat 131. “quite nice (in there), a little slippy, muddy but yeah, I prefer that. Probably a better run than normally”. In fact behind the rapid 4WD machine, the remainder of the top 6: Elliot, Robinson, Perez, Crossen (despite a misting-up screen), and Mennell were only covered by eight seconds. The prevailing feeling was that it was great to be back on some classic Welsh stages even if they were a little slippy.
“I loved it there actually, it was mint, it was real good. A couple of years ago it was a bit rough. I enjoyed it, going down that valley in the middle of the stage, that is a bit of a bum clencher, but yeah it was alright, it was great.”
Matthew Robinson
PHOTOS: GEORGE LEPLEY & DALE BOWEN | NICK ELLIOTT & DAVE PRICE | MATTHEW ROBINSON & SAM COLLIS | BY ANDREW SCOTT
After setting the eighth fastest time in SS1, SS2 saw Adrian Hetherington shoot to the top of the time sheets with a time of seven minutes seventeen seconds through the 6.44 miles of Dyfi. Perhaps now bedding in with last minute.com co-driver Dan Petrie after Ronan O’Neill had to unfortunately pull out the day before.
SS2, the Big Ray stage (Dyfi), previously ran on the roads to the east of the forest, towards Aberangell, this year covered the section of the forest previously known as Dyfi main, on the Corris side. Hetherington/Petrie’s fastest time moved them up to fifth overall, twenty-two seconds behind leader George Lepley who set third fastest time, only two seconds behind Hetherington. Sandwiching the aforementioned was the Fiat of Elliot/Price.
PHOTO: ADRIAN HETHERINGTON & DAN PETRIE | BY ANDREW SCOTT
This left the overall leaderboard with Lepley/Bowen leading by Eleven seconds from Elliot/Price, and the consistent Seb Perez and Gary McElhinney Porsche six seconds behind in third.
Perez was to take a commanding lead in Cat2, with neither Riponian winner (and 2023 champion) Josh Carr or runner-up Jeremy Easson competing. Carr deciding to keep his focus on April’s Rallynuts due to the cost pressures of doing both events and a busy period at work. As a result, for Perez/ McElhinney, it was a lead they would not relinquish throughout the day, their main competition came from championship returnees Ben and Steven Smith who were the only ones able to stay remotely close to the Porsche throughout the day.
PHOTO: SEB PEREZ & GARY MCELHINNEY | BEN SMITH & STEVEN SMITH | BY ANDREW SCOTT
Onto SS3 and things were to change substantially as our leader George Lepley was to retire and all those wishing the demise of the devil were to have their wish, our question of whether the 4WD machine could repeat its Riponian success was to go unanswered. A sheered front hub was the cause.
“Fantastic start to Rally North Wales but a frustrating result! Great to be leading the rally after SS2 and SS3 was feeling even better, but front hub sheared unexpectedly without touching anything. Game over for today sadly. Lots of positives to take to Rallynuts in four weeks time.”
George Lepley, Facebook
With the loss of Lepley/Bowen and closely matched times behind him, the rough and rocky SS3 saw quite a shake-up on the leader board with many crews reporting difficult road conditions. Perez admitted that he backed off as a result of the conditions: “That stage 3 was horrendously rough, so we just backed off, it was just a car wrecker“. McDaid backing this up at the end of SS4 “That first one is very rough, you’d think it was the second run-through, she was jumping all over the place”.
All told Nick Elliot and Dave Price replaced Lepley/Bowen as the leaders with a time of Seven thirty-four, however, they were eclipsed by the hard-charging David Crossen and Ben Teggart who went a full four seconds faster on that first pass of the rough and rocky Dyfnant West test “it is our first rally really in a brand new car, first time in a historic car. I can see where I am losing time, I am through the first half and happy enough. So far so good“, Said Crossen at stage end.
Overall, Crossen’s rapid time meant that he leapfrogged the retiring Lepley, Adrian Hetherington, Matthew Robinson, and the cautious Seb Perez to move up to second, thirteen seconds behind Elliott, and one second ahead of Hetherington in third. Matthew Robinson was a further four seconds down in fourth and Seb Perez fifth after only setting the eighth fastest time.
For the final stage of the loop the crews stayed in Dyfnant to run SS4 on the short and quick East stage centred around the Caravan park section of the forest. True to form our leaders Elliot and Price were to extend their lead by two seconds, and in doing so recorded their first fastest stage time of the day – consistency being the watchword up until this point. Elliot went one second quicker than both Adrian Hetherington / Dan Petrie and Dan Mennell / Richard Wise in what remained a very closely fought fight behind our leader. The remainder of the top 6 stage times were covered by the small margin of 3 seconds, being made up of Crossen, Robinson, and Perez and a total of five seconds splitting the top 6 on this quick 3.5-mile test.
PHOTO: DANIEL MENNELL & RICHARD WISE | BY DAN MORRIS (APEX CAPTURE) & DAVID CROSSEN & BEN TEGGART | BY ANDREW SCOTT
As the Crews returned to Welshpool our overall leaderboard looked as follows: Elliot/Price leading by 15 seconds and a tie for second between Hetherington/Petrie and Crossen/Teggart.
“The car is still going ok, I really feel like the old bus is really on song and we can actually drive it, and its working. (A) Few tweaks over the winter and its working.”
Nick Elliot
Robinson and Collis were fourth, a total of twenty-one seconds behind Elliot and six seconds behind the pair tied for second. Mennell/Wise rose steadily from eighth to fifth between Big Ray and Dyfnant East with Dan saying: “loving it, just taken a bit of adapting too, these welsh forests, brilliant stages”.
Perez/McElhinney rounded out the top 6 going under the radar after a consistent morning setting no spectacular stage times and playing it very cautiously on the rougher sections, but always finishing somewhere in the middle of the top 6 on the time sheets. One absentee of note was former champion Ben Friend, hampered by Brake issues all morning, having set only one top ten time, ninth before finally retiring at service.
“Yeah, we tried a new compound brake pad and couldn’t get them right! I struggled in the morning loop with getting the car stopped. We had 3 spins/overshoots and a stall! So we decided to call it a day whilst the car was in one piece”
Ben Friend
PHOTO: BEN FRIEND & CLIFF SIMMONS | BY DAN MORRIS (APEX CAPTURE)
In Cat2, Seb Perez finished leg one thirty-two seconds ahead of Ben Smith in the Mk1 Escort after setting the fastest time on each of the first four stages. He and Smith would go on to dominate the afternoon too, Perez setting the fastest Cat2 time on all eight stages. Tim Pearcey was to finish Leg One a distant third, a total of two minutes and three seconds off the lead, but only one second ahead of Andrew Stokes and Johnny Tad Evans in fourth. They were set for a rally-long battle over that final podium position.
LEADERBOARD AFTER 4
| POS | LEADERBOARD | TIME |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | #4 N.ELLIOTT & D.PRICE | 00:24:26 |
| 2 | #8 A.HETHERINGTON & D.PETRIE | 00:24:41 |
| 3 | #11 D.CROSSEN & B.TEGGART | 00:24:41 |
| 4 | #3 M.ROBINSON & S.COLLIS | 00:24:47 |
| 5 | #9 D.MENNELL & R.WISE | 00:24:53 |
LEG 2, STAGES 5 – 8
The afternoon loop started much as morning with the route order remaining unchanged for the final four stages. The only difference being the weather, which had changed, and not for the better. Conditions throughout the afternoon were to prove both tough and attritional in equal measure as the rain seemed to increase exponentially stage by stage, and we would lose a further three of our leading contenders across the remaining four stages.
SS6 Big Ray was to see the first of those retirements, as our second place man, David Crossen was to succumb to a “Small tumble” when a puddle on the inside of a corner sucked the pair in and caused them to first spin, and then roll.
“What could have been, some great times by David on the opening loop, to lie joint 2nd overall with Adrian Hetherington after 4 stages, stage 5 we lost 10 seconds to Adrian and unfortunately a small tumble on stage 6 put an end to a great result for me and David. Crew ok and will be back to fight another day”
Ben Teggart
PHOTO: DAVID CROSSEN & BEN TEGGART | BY DAN MORRIS (APEX CAPTURE)
Prior to this, Hetherington had already seized the initiative in his battle with Crossen. In SS5 Gartheinieog two he set the fastest time and took ten seconds out of the Crossen/Teggart pair to firmly grab hold of second place on his own. With multiple crews reporting that despite feeling faster, times were slower (McDaid, Crossen), Hetherington said at stage end “We were nine quicker, we were on the limit, on the limit”. Firmly outlining how he stole a march on his nearest rivals.
Second fastest time through SS5 was Perez/ McElhinney, just two seconds slower than Hetherington/Petrie, and as we will see, both they and Rudi Lancaster/Guy Weaver were poised to rise up the leaderboard throughout the afternoon, and much like Hetherington, Seb’s view of SS5 was at odds with much of the field.
“It was a bit better actually, I think it helped, just because it wasn’t raining, so you had a bit more vision, but yeah it felt alright, slippery in places. Strange for Wales in March! How odd! But no, it was good”.
Seb Perez
PHOTO: SEB PEREZ & GARY MCELHINNEY | BY ANDREW SCOTT & PHOTO: RUDI LANCASTER & GUY WEAVER | BY DAN MORRIS (APEX CAPTURE)
Consistent as ever, Nick Elliot took equal third fastest time through SS5 (with Dan Mennell) and would follow this up by taking his second fastest time of the day through SS6 Big Ray. Big Ray also saw Lancaster make his first top six time of the day, finishing fourth on stage with the same time as Mennell. This was to be the first of three consecutive top four times as Lancaster started his charge up the leaderboard.
By the time the Crews finished that Big Ray test the overall leaderboard looked as follows: Nick Elliot led with an overall time of thirty-eight minutes and two seconds, fourteen seconds ahead of Hetherington and Perez a further seven seconds back in third. Fourth was Mennell just 3 seconds behind Perez. Robinson was a further five seconds back in the closely fought fight for the final podium spot with the consistent and very much under-the-radar Bennett and the rapidly rising Lancaster completing the top 7.
PHOTO: STEVE BENNETT & OSIAN OWEN | ADRIAN HETHERINGTON & DAN PETRIE | BY ANDREW SCOTT
The final 2 stages would be held in the Dyfnant complex, first ran on the longer rougher Western stage, before a shorter final test in the east of the forest. Some significant changes were to come as both Robinson and Bennett would retire before the finish, but more crucially Hetherington would drop a minute to Elliot on SS7 as a result of a puncture, all but taking him out of the podium fight.
“Puncture, (we) lost 2 minutes there like. Gwyndaf (Evans) caught us for a start, and he was a minute behind us, and then he disappeared, so we lost a good 2 minutes. Got about half a mile into the stage. That’s just luck, isn’t it!”.
Adrian Hetherington
On SS7, Dyfnant West, Dan Mennell set his first fastest time of the day, as he and Nick Elliot set the joint quickest time. Seb Perez and Rudi Lancaster continued their afternoon progress, Seb moving up to third overall, and Lancaster would end SS7 fourth in the treacherous conditions as he grabbed the bull by the horns in his battle with Steve Bennett. Both he and Perez benefited from the retirement of Matthew Robinson (with axle failure, a noisy Diff causing them to drive back to service after SS6) and the Hetherington puncture.
A newcomer to the overall top 6 on SS7 was Ben Smith in the ex-Perez Mk1 escort, still adorning the familiar Amigos livery– Just reward for a committed drive and taking advantage of retirements, with three top six times in the afternoon.
Ben was also holding second to Seb Perez in Cat 2 and this is the way it would finish, as the only man less than a minute behind the pacey Porsche. After setting a full house of second-place stage times throughout the day and with a DanSport Porsche 911 build on the way, one to watch in future events for sure.
“yep, we entered yesterday, into the championship, and decided that we should do the rest of the season”
Ben Smith
PHOTO: BEN SMITH & STEVEN SMITH | ANDREW STOKES & JONNY TAD EVANS | BY ANDREW SCOTT
Behind the 2 Amigos liveried cars in Cat2, Andrew Stokes and Johnny Tad Evans had overhauled Pearcey taking third in class on the first stage of the loop, SS5 Garthinieog, and they would hang onto it in a tight battle all the way to the finish. By the time the crews finished SS8 the gap was only eight seconds between the third-place podium contenders, all be it nearly 5 minutes behind the top two.
Back at the head of the field, the top 3 overall remained unchanged after the final stage of the day, Dyfnant East, where Nick Elliot would cement the win with his sixth top three time of the day, winning the event by thirty-six seconds from a beaming Dan Mennell who claimed it to be “Pretty Special” and “Brilliant”.
PHOTO: NICK ELLIOTT & DAVE PRICE | DANIEL MENNELL & RICHARD WISE | BY ANDREW SCOTT
“It’s been a while, first win in the Fiat, first win for a couple of years, so yeah, really pleased. I said at the start, the car was just that much better from the word go. I felt we could compete. It was actually making me sweat on most stages rather than just get to the end. I had to drive it and it showed.As ever the pace at the front has been ferocious, with five or six drivers all with great talent and great pace, but we have just had that little bit and nicked it”.
Nick Elliot
Afternoon stars Seb Perez and Rudi Lancaster finished third and fourth. Perez failed to pip Mennell by just one second, despite setting his first fastest time of the day on SS8 after having “a really good run through that last one, I hope the time reflects it”. A further 40 seconds behind was Lancaster. A great run for Rudi who was quoted as saying, “Yeah great day, fantastic stages, they held up well as well, generally a great day out”.
Steve Bennett’s retirement with a Damaged Wheel left the remaining top 6 places to Ben Smith and Richard Hill with the recovering Adrian Hetherington in seventh after his SS7 issues.
FINAL LEADERBOARD
| POS | LEADERBOARD | TIME |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | #4 .ELLIOTT & D.PRICE | 00:50:06 |
| 2 | #9 D.MENNELL & R.WISE | 00:50:42 |
| 3 | #5 S.PEREZ & G.MCELHINNEY | 00:50:43 |
| 4 | #16 R.LANCASTER & G.WEAVER | 00:51:23 |
| 5 | #24 B.SMITH & S.SMITH | 00:51:45 |
WINNERS AND LOSERS
Nick Elliot’s win in Welshpool moves him up from fourth to the top of the overall BHRC standings on fifty-three points, Adrian Hetherington remains in second despite his afternoon puncture and both rise at the expense of Riponian winner Matthew Robinson who drops to third after his non finish in Wales. Dan Mennell currently sits fourth after his first BHRC podium in Wales.
| POS | LEADERBOARD | POINTS |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nick Elliott | 53 |
| 2 | Adrian Hetherington | 42 |
| 3 | Matthew Robinson | 33 |
| 4 | Richard Hill | 33 |
| 5 | Daniel Mennell | 29 |
The Cat2 leaderboard remains wide open after the appearance of Perez for the first time this season and Josh Carr’s non-start. A consistent first two rounds by Pearcey and double points score by Matt Brown leave them heading the table on thirty and twenty-four points respectively, next come Riponian and North Wales winners Carr and Perez joint third on twenty points apiece.
| POS | LEADERBOARD | POINTS |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tim Pearcey | 30 |
| 2 | Matt Brown | 24 |
| 3 | Josh Carr | 20 |
| 4 | Seb Perez | 20 |
| 5 | Jeremy Easson | 18 |
A mixed day of weather and multiple retirements set us up nicely for the third round of the championship, on another set of classic Mid-Wales stages, for the Rallynuts Severn Valley stages in April. Hafren, Myherin, and Sarnau to provide the playground for an event whose base moves between two Wells from Builth to Llandrindod for 2024.
An event where BHRC stars will share a billing with the 3 other major national gravel championships in the shape of the British Rally Championship, BTRDA, and Welsh Gravel Championship. All set up for a cracker of an event stay tuned to Xlerate for coverage in a week on Saturday.
