On the fourth attempt, the M.E.Rallysport team of Matt Edwards and Andy Murphy finally overcame the jinx of local territory on last weekends Cambrian Rally in Llandudno to score their first Tesco 99 Octane 1400 win.
See a video of matt racing from inside his Astra here
Cambrian Conquest...at last!
An impressive performance in their 1400 Astra also saw them take the Junior Award, B8 Class Award, and the North Wales Car Club Award on the event, helping to secure a fine 2nd Overall in the Tesco 1400 Series for the season.
The North Wales Car Club run final round of the BTRDA Championship took in the challenging stages of Clocaenog and Penmachno that are now used only once a year, but despite Edwards' intimate knowledge of the treturous forest tracks, lady luck had been elsewhere on each and every vist to them on previous occasions, with mechanical gremlins halting promising progress. However, having been let off the leash for this final round, due to wrapping up the B8 Class award for the year on the Plains rally, the young crew attacked from the word go and would come out of Penmachno for the first time in 5th overall and leader of the Silverstone Tyre runners, despite admitting to not taking any big risks in the more tricky parts of the stages.
"The local knowledge is more helpful for knowing where to slow down in this forest, as the bedrock is quite bad in places and can easily unsettle the car, so we would probably have gone faster not knowing it was there!"; said Edwards at first service. After a routine check over in the misty Brenig service area, the pairing headed to the Clocaenog complex eager to get into their favourite stages, the first of which was the very fast 6.5 miles of Alwen. Knowing they would be at a disadvantage on the long straights to the more powerful cars, a commited but tidy approcah to the stage saw them only lose the 1 place to Mark Gamble by 5 seconds, but with the more technical stages ahead, this was still a strong position.
Maintaining a comfortable lead amongst the championship runners, the next stage was likely to be the key to the afternoon, as problems had arisen at the same place on 3 previous occasions in the Clocaenog East stage. But despite a nerve racking run through the test in very slippery conditions, the clocks stopped at 4th fastest 1400 time, enough to move them back up to 5th on the overall leaderboard. This was followed by another impressive 4th fastest time on the 9 miles of stage 5; the crew and car working faultlessly and settling into a smooth but no less effective rythym.
After one last visit to service, the self built and maintained car reported no major drama's and headed back to Penmachno for the re-run last stage, just 8 miles seperating the popular duo from a well deserved end of season victory. And sure enough, another characteristically attacking but clean approach netted Edwards and Murphy their 4th top 4 stage time of the event, in and amongst the B9 16v machines of Julian Wilkes, Neil Matthews, and Duncan Williams, to claim their maiden Tesco 99 Octane 1400 win. "We'r both really pleased with this result, and it puts the icing on the cake for what has been a near perfect second half of the year for us. After everything going wrong on the Malcolm Wilson and Red Dragon rallies, we set out to secure the class championship first, then see what happens, so to have claimed our first BTRDA Goblets and 2nd Overall in the championship is a big bonus to say the least" said the jubilant 23yr old at the finish. "Everyone has pulled together really well, especially in the second half of the season, and without a lot of the support we have had from the people around us, Andy and myself wouldnt have had the chance to put our good teamworking in the car to the test. Its also nice to achieve our best result in my hometown, on our favourite stages, and on an event my father has a little to do with!" joked Edwards, whos Father Alyn is Clerk Of the Course.
The M.E.Rallysport team would like to thank Gardner Motorsprt, N&S Home Imporovements (Llanrwst), Onyx Rallying, and Slaters of Colwyn Bay, for their ongoing assistance.
As the team tries to put together plans for progress into 2008, they would like to hear from anyone expressing an interest in getting involved with their enthusiastic and hard working team.
