Meadows makes most of early road position for victory

Tommi Meadows was the class of the field in the 1400 class as he stroked his Ford Ka to victory over Steve Black’s Suzuki Swift by over 40 seconds. But as the rain hit the Kielder vicinity on the penultimate stage, Meadows’s rally very nearly unravelled.

Partnered by co-driver Emma Morrison, Meadows had been trying to keep it clean on a treacherous penultimate test but was pitched onto two wheels on the fast 14.88-mile Kershope stage which nearly spelt disaster for the pair.

“It’s definitely not been an easy day,” Meadows said post-event. “We used all of our luck today, especially in that one [SS5]. It was horizontal rain, it was like an ice rink. We caught two cars, one car went off in front and we nearly followed them on our roof to be honest. We’re lucky to get to the finish.”

Aside from this heart-stopping moment, it was a dominant performance from Meadows. After SS1 winner Chris Powell pulled up on Newcastleton with mechanical woes, Meadows built a 15-second lead over Black on SS2 before doubling it on SS3 (Ash Park).

Black – the infamous car preparer best known for his association with the F2 era – remained Meadows’ nearest rival and was comfortably ahead of Pete Gorst’s Vauxhall Nova. Gorst made a superb recovery after losing 40 seconds in the opening two stages, having to drive a reduced speed due to hanging dust impacting visibility.

Wesley Gilford and co-driver Sam Colman were the only entrants in

Rally First. The pair, driving a Fiesta ST in the RF2.0 class, crashed into a ditch on Kershope and failed to complete the final pass through Ash Park. The best of the BTRDA registered

Historics were Ernie Graham and Robin Kellard in their Ford Escort Mk2, beating fellow H3 competitors Peter Smith and John Millington (Fiat 131) by over three minutes.