GLORY FOR BREEN ON ULSTER RALLY
Reigning champion resists temptation to fight Breen and bags BRC win.
His heart might have been saying “go for the win”, but Matt Edwards’ head told him otherwise. He knew that there was something much bigger at stake and much more important than the bragging rights that come with defeating Craig Breen in a straight fight.
That will have to wait for another day when there is not the defence of a British Rally Championship title on the line.
Second to Breen, yes, but as the leading BRC driver home at the Ulster Rally it was a case of job done for the Welshman, especially as close rival Tom Cave failed to reach the finish ramp. Although Edwards is now in the box seat heading to Scotland for the Galloway Hills Rally next month he, like Cave, still has to play his points boosting ‘Joker’, so it is far from a done deal.
Edwards was quickest out of the blocks on the opening Mcgaffin’s Corner test from Cave but felt his notes needed tweaking as the conditions had changed from the recce 24 hours earlier.
Already in trouble was Desi Henry. After breaking a driveshaft, his Ford Fiesta R5 only had two driven wheels. Fellow BRC returnee Josh Moffett haemorrhaged
time with a non-functioning handbrake and he arrived at the end of the hairpin strewn nine-mile test absolutely fuming.
The drama continued on stage two – Bronte Homeland – when Meirion
Evans was unable to stop his Skoda Fabia from ending up in a grass field. It could have been much worse, as James Wilson demonstrated. His third outing in a Hyundai i20 R5 ended down the side of a ditch. That same ditch also put paid to Alan Carmichael’s participation in the BRC National Rally Cup.
Alex Laffey was another high-profile casualty on SS2. As the Scotsman thundered towards a junction, he locked up the wheels on his Fiesta R5, smacked a bank and burst the radiator.
Edwards, meanwhile, was coolness personified as he kept Cave at arm’s length. In his attempt to reel in the reigning champion on dry roads Cave had a two-wheel moment a mile from the end of SS3. “I am blessed to be here,” he said. Moffett was not so lucky as his day went from bad to worse when his car ended up on its roof. Fortunately, the crew walked away uninjured.
After first service, and having given himself a good talking to, the fire in Cave’s belly appeared to be burning a bit brighter as he reduced Edward’s buffer to 6.6 seconds. “We will have some more of that!” he smiled.
Another person on the move was Marty Mccormack, his Fabia R5 less of a handful in the ambient temperatures. “We can’t get it to work when it is greasy,” he said. He moved up to fifth on stage five as Cave lost ground to Edwards by virtue of a trip through a barbed wire fence that rearranged the roof ’s air scoop.
Jonny Greer’s car was another in the wars. He misjudged his braking at a crest and had to thread the Pirellishod machine through a pair of concrete posts. “It’s funny looking back, but it wasn’t at the time,” he said.
With many of the top seeds experiencing scares, the consensus at service prior to the third and final loop was to hold on to what you have. But for Cave the hope was that Edwards might fall by the wayside and, if that was to happen, he would be ideally placed to pick up the pieces.
What he didn’t want was for something that would put the title further out of his reach. But that is exactly what happened on the penultimate stage when he collided with a stone wall. The resultant impact was so violent it ripped two wheels off the i20 R5 and bent the right side of the chassis. Greer also hit trouble on SS8 and this time it was permanent as his Fiesta ground to a halt.
That really shook up the order and promoted Mccormack up to second, albeit briefly. He, too, would fall foul of the unforgiving nature of the roads with a crash on the very last timed run. It meant Evans took second (although not the points as he was also entered on the Irish Tarmac event) leaving those from the Junior British Rally Championship to scrap it out for the final podium spot.
A turbo-related scare for James Williams’ Ford Fiesta R2T late in the day allowed Josh Mcerlean to nip in front and earn the best result of his career to date. A steady run by the Mitsubishi Lancer E9 duo of John Morrison and Peter Carstairs, and the earlier retirement of Carmichael and Ivor Lamont, allowed them to seal the National Rally Cup.