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The Cambrian Rally was all about an epic battle between a trio of Peugeot 208 R2s, with 1.9 seconds splitting first-time winner James Wilson and series regular William Creighton after 10 gruelling special stages.
Josh Mcerlean was on top in the morning by winning Clocaenog and then repeated the feat on Alwen. But a “tricky” stage three, where he “took it steady”, resulted in Mcerlean losing 11 seconds to stage winner Creighton.
That allowed Creighton to creep ahead of Mcerlean overall and take the lead, but only by a slender 1.6s.
“They were pretty clean stages for us, I suppose that’s the main thing,” Creighton said afterwards.
“In the first two we were maybe a little off the top but the third one was good so we’ll go out and try do it again this afternoon,” he confirmed.
Undeterred by his loss of time, Mcerlean declared: “We’ll go for a push in the second loop.”
Recent Billy Coleman Award winner Wilson had also snuck his way up to third in class after a strong time through Elsi.
“We had an off-road excursion on stage one, and dropped maybe nine or 10 seconds,” he revealed. “It was a lot more slippery than I anticipated.”
Creighton continued his charge into the afternoon with a scratch time on stage four, but a “rock left in the middle of the road” punctured his front-right tyre on the following test and cost him 35s.
That left Mcerlean and Wilson free up front, and the pair were scintillatingly close all afternoon. Wilson overtook his rival on stage four to lead by 0.3s, with that gap never reaching more than a second as the duo returned to service separated by a mere 0.1s.
The final three stages belonged to Creighton. He began the loop 21.9s adrift of Wilson but took 20s back through the darkness to fall just short of a superb victory.
Mcerlean’s challenge faltered when he picked up a puncture, allowing Marty Gallagher to steal the final podium place after Jordan Hone suffered with a car set-up “too low” for the rutted final stages. He fell from third to fifth.
“It’s a bit surreal,” enthused Wilson. “It was definitely a tough day but we’re happy to get the first win and the £2,500 prize money.”
Creighton was reflective: “When we found out we were second we were very happy with that as we left service fifth, but to lose by 1.9s is frustrating. But I don’t think we could’ve done any more.”
Finlay Retson, whose gearbox was flown in from Poland the day before the rally after the first broke in a shakedown, Ruairi Bell and Bart Lang were the remaining JBRC finishers.
James Williams failed to make it past stage three. First, the boost pipe on his Fiesta R2T split and then a wheel hub broke, dislodging one of the wheels.
John Morrison won the National Cup in his Mitsubishi E9 ahead of Richard Phillipson’s Honda Civic.