FORD AND SIMKISS TOP OF THE ENVILLE PILE FOR A SECOND YEAR

JRT Enville Stages

Organiser: Warrington & DMC When: July 3 Where: Ty Croes, Anglesey Championships: ANWCC, SD34, Anglesey Rally Challenge Stages: 10 Starters: 66

Chris Ford and Craig Simkiss (Subaru Impreza) led from start to finish, scoring a huge victory of over two-minutes over a single day, 10-stage rally.

Ford is no stranger to national rally wins but, paired with the experienced Craig Simkiss for the first time, the duo were unstoppable taking an event Ford won last year.

There was a battle for second which eventually fell to Chris and Ben Roberts in their Bastos-liveried BMW M3, seeded at 31. Third was the Darrian of Geoff Roberts and Terry Martin, who had finished the first stage with a snapped shock absorber – welded up by the service crew of Motorsport News Circuit Rally Championship class winners Mike Taylor and Martin Haggett (SunbeamLotus), who took fifth after gearbox linkage issues. Splitting these two was the Group B Motorsport Ford Escort of Terry Clarke and Ron Roughead from Durham.

Close results followed with Derek Blyth and Nick Colman sixth in their Impreza, just three seconds up on ANWCC Championship leaders Rob Hughes and Sion Cunniff (Focus) with Liverpool crew Howard Macpherson and Derek Schofield just one second behind in their new Ford Escort.

Wayne and Darrel Thomas debuted their new Darrian and were lying third from a start number of 40 until the last stage when a sudden loss of power meant a slow time, dropping to ninth while locals Cliff Evans and Chris Brierley (Escort) rounded off the top 10.

Paul and George Sheard took the 1600 class by a big margin, their Mazda MX-5 nearly eight minutes up on the Polo of Ashleigh Morris and John Goff, David Forrester and Ian Jones (205) taking third. Gethin Jones and Martin Roberts (Nova) took the 1400 class results.