Welshchampionshiphonourstorussthompson
Russ Thompson put his considerable experience to good use to take victory on the opening round of the Welsh Rally Championship.
Piloting a Group N Mitsubishi Lancer E9, Thompson was mixing it as high as fourth in the National B event in the morning, and would go on to win six out of the seven Welshcounting stages, missing the clean sweep of fastest times by 5.9 seconds in the final test.
Elsewhere, Scott Faulkner (Lancer E9) and Richard Hill (Subaru Impreza) enjoyed a superb scrap throughout the day for the remaining podium places.
Hill was fastest first but was quickly overhauled on stage two, before another quicker time through Elsi lifted Faulkner’s advantage to 4.6s.
“Those last few stages were very rough, we haven’t done such rough stages in a while so it’s not going as well as it could be at the moment,” Hill commented at service.
Hill responded in stage four by going 0.8s quicker and then 9.8s quicker in five, but the final two tests belonged to Faulkner and a scratch on stage seven meant he took second overall by just 1.6s.
Chris Powell (Talbot Sunbeam) and Dave Brick (Vauxhall Nova) contested a similarly close battle for 1600 honours. In the end the battle swung Powell’s way, finishing fourth by 7.2s.
Tom Llewellin landed a fine ninth overall in the National B event, and top Welsh Junior in his historic Ford Escort Mk2, while Matthew Hirst never made it out of stage one due to an alternator failure on his Mitsubishi.