Irish crew Andrew Purcell and Martin Brady made a very late call to contest the Plains Rally (Saturday May 17) in their Ford Fiesta Rally2 and came away with an event victory and maximum points in the Motorsport UK Pirelli Welsh Rally Championship.
As forest rallying made a very welcome return to Wales, the sun bore down on the stages of Alwen, Aberhirnant and Dyfnant to deliver a fast and very dusty rally for the second round of the Pirelli Welsh Rally Championship.
Purcell only decided to contest the event three days before as he sought further seat time and was a late registration for the PWRC.
Despite struggling to find the right pace for the event, Purcell finished the day 10 seconds up on the similar Fiesta Rally2 of Liam Clark and Jack Morton, as Clark moved into the overall lead in the PWRC points.
Clark suffered a diff problem in the first run of Dyfnant, which he reckoned cost him around 10 seconds. The fact that Purcell’s winning margin was also 10 seconds means that it could have been very close at the end of the day.
Into a fine podium position came James Giddings/Aled Davies (Mitsubishi Lancer E9).
With a strong historic field for the event, notable class performances for PWRC points included those from the Ford Escorts of Chris Hellings/Glyn Thomas (Flat Crest), Hywel Davies/Sion Rowlands and Peter Hinton/Glenn Mercer (Yorkshire Garden Maintenance/Rallynuts), while the Volvo 244 of Darrell Denning/Alex Lewis (Genuine Cars and Classics/J&S Handling) topped Class H7 in style.
The pace in Class H8 was intense and leading the PWRC chase of Mennell were Ben Friend/Cliffy Simmons (Allglass Anglia), Rudi Lancaster/Guy Weaver and Robert Gough/Jack Bowen, with Gough dropping time in the early stages with a puncture.
Gareth Bevan/Craig Nelson (Freemans Bodyshop) were next up in H8 while a quartet of PWRC contenders battled all day in Ford Escorts and finished in the order Ron Morgan/Jordan Jones, Jeremy Wells/Martin Saunders, Lyn Davies/Aled Richards (57 Tyres) and Peter Jones/Gareth Davies. Finally, the Peugeot 205GTi of Paul Clayton/Veera Johnson (Retro, Race and Rally/PD Extinguishers) won Class H11.
