EDWARDS TO USE EX-SMITH FIESTA ON MN CIRCUIT RALLY
British Rally title winner will contest the Neil Howard Stages at Oulton Park next month
Two-time British Rally champion Matt Edwards is preparing to enter the opening round of the Motorsport News Circuit Rally Championship when it begins next month.
The opening round, the Neil Howard Stages, takes place on November 2 at Oulton Park and Edwards will contest the event in the same Ford Fiesta R5 that Guy Smith used in the series last year.
“Pete Smith [who runs Edwards] likes to support the championship and it’s a little opportunity for me to go and try the car which has a paddleshift on it now, and it’ll be a feel-good day out,” Edwards said.
“It’s quite funny, I’d never driven it [Oulton Park] at all in my life and then I’ll be doing it twice in near enough a month!
“I’ve only ever done one single venue in my life before so we’ll just go out and have some fun with a young co-driver [Rhys Stoneman] who’s showing some good potential. I’ll never turn down an opportunity to drive anything.”
Edwards comes off the back of his Wales Rally GB outing, where he feels he “exceeded expectations” after his first time in a Hyundai i20 R5.
He was a sensational seventh overall after Thursday night’s Oulton Park stage but would retire on Friday with a broken TCA bolt. Refusing to give up, Edwards got the car out of the stage but went off the road on the following test as his repair failed. But he was delighted to reach the finish after what was “the hardest deal I’ve taken upon myself to put together in a long, long time”.
“Overall we’re very happy,” Edwards told MN. “We basically did a set-up on paper based on in-car [cameras] and general thoughts and feelings, so being able to put the times in we did straight off the bat was really positive.
“I was really, really happy with the times. The time we were losing per kilometre was nothing when you consider I’d never been in the car or sat with Mark [Glennerster] before.”