Co-driver Goodman battles on to grab class eighth in Nicky Grint Rally

Hunmanby co-driver Jim Goodman recovered to bag a useful eighth in class at the Nicky Grist Rally when he teamed up with Graham Thatcher. The pair got underway in the rain in their bright orange Subaru Impreza, the event taking in a 24-mile run down to Crychan and the first of four stages to be repeated in the afternoon all on the fringes of the Egynt ranges with the tarmac roads used as link sections. He said: “When we headed into Halfway Forest for stage two, despite a 40-year absence I remembered a few bits of it. “TowardstheendIheard what I thought was a flat tyre, but this was not the case so it was into management service at Dixies crossroads and we screamed off down the tarmac to the stage which I had been really looking forward to. “We headed back into service at Dixies and the final morning stage through Monument which had a very big jump. “At the finish of the stage as we approached the stop line there were several co-drivers walking back to the stage finish and we wondered why. “Then the marshal told us that they had lost communications with the flying finish and we would have to go back there for our times. “A leisurely hour back in main service in Builth and we needed a check underneath to sort out a bumping which was causing a little concern, it turned out to be the gearbox cross member but they soon had it sorted and our fears were dispelled. “The lads who met us at Dixies had also rung Geoff Jones to tell him of our intercom problem and as we pulled in there he was with a brand new one in his hands for us which was very swiftly fitted andallwaswell. “The second runs through the stages were much more badly cut up and rutted, and we were dropping time all over the place which maybe wasn’t so bad as we took the car home straight. “We actually dropped 11, 28, 21 and 38 seconds but some of those bumps on the inside of corners were unbelievable. “Just a couple of very minor overshoots and a spin halted by slight contact with a rock or similar were all that stopped us from having a totally faultless run rewarded by eighth in the very competitive B13 class.”