JACK BENYON
“Sbeng: an introduction to road rallying”
I t’s been a good decade since I’d been to a road rally, and never had I been to a fully fledged round of the Welsh Road Rally Championship. What a night. I never thought a trip to Newcastle Emlyn would be drier than one to Salou for Rally Spain...
The Cilwendeg Rally – organised by the Teifi Vally Motor Club – is one of the most prestigious events on the calendar, and thanks to an invite and typical methodical planning from Michael Gilbey – who sealed the Welsh navigators championship at the weekend – I got to see what it was all about.
First, a glossary. At this point I was expecting explanations of things like ‘petrol’ and ‘regularity’. Nope. ‘Sbeng’ loosely means banter, ‘bachan, bachan’ means good and ‘IASU BOIS’ written in capitals can be used as a surprise to good and bad things. After that I was lost.
I can’t remember seeing so many people in a service park as I did at the start of the Cilwendeg in this tiny town in South Wales. At 2100hrs, young families and kids were still committed to seeing anything from a Toyota Corolla to the four-door Ford Escort Mk2 rarely seen outside of road rallying but so popular within it.
With Derek Keohane chauffeuring in a tidy Overfinch Land Rover Discovery, complete with 2000s Clubland Classics on shuffle and navigated by Tom Perrot and Josh and Derek Mullen, we were off at 2315hrs ready for a good five hours of action. Complete with a tonne of sandwiches in the back and a car full of sbeng, it felt like ‘the good old days’, and they wouldn’t end until 0600hrs.
What a buzz. The Cilwendeg felt like a thrilling rally spectating time machine had been engaged, except for seeing the odd Peugeot 106 or something else more modern fly by.
Having been used to the restrictive (and necessary, that’s not a dig at the authorities) viewing on forest and some closed-road rallies in recent seasons, the freedom available on this event was a pleasant surprise as it takes place on public roads.
It was great to see some of the stars of the discipline, like Kevin Davies– the event winner – up-and-comer Rhodri Evans and Andy Davies in a beautiful Impreza GC8 with the familiar Subaru rumble, in action alongside ace navigators.
With a full entry of almost 90 starters, the event looks in rude health, although from what I saw, the clerks of the course – Richard Evans and Nigel Nelson – retiring should cause concern. Often the clerk/competitor relationship is a tough one but the pairing appear to be respected in their decisions, and able to enjoy the event and joke with crews about the ups and downs of the night while still maintaining gravitas.
Despite the 400 mile round trip – and the fact I could have been in Salou and back quicker than it took me to get from London to Ceredigion – I’ll be back next year.
The trip also had the happy overlap between the story to your left, a chance to see some of the roads that will be used on the Ceredigion Rally as soon as next year. Those competitors really are in for a treat.