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Here you will find all the very latest news and information on the rally teams forthcoming activities Last Updated: 17th April 2010

DW Construction Stages - 2nd May 2010

The team have placed an entry into this years DW Construction Stages Rally due to take part on 2nd May at Hallburn Airfield Near Longtown (Carlisle). Its a fairly gravelly venue and should suit the car well in its forest spec. Mitch McGrath, who can normally be found navigating for Dave Head in the super swift, will be navigating for this one as our usual navigator is sitting in with his brother in their newly built Mk II Escort. We will of course be hoping to beat them, after all its only a 2 litre engine in it!!!

Crew take the class win on final stage of Grizedale Rally!

Graham and his co-driver Dave Gibson were competing in the Vauxhall Nova on the Grizedale Stages Rally last Saturday.

The team had a frantic week leading up to the event because the car was suffering from major handling problems, however a lot of late nights in the garage of their local sponsor Gerald Davies Auto Repairs in Kendal saw these ironed out, the eventual cause was traced to a damaged rear axle. That's our excuse for takeaway's every night for a week and we're sticking to it!!!!

The morning of the rally dawned wet and murky in the Grizedale Forest complex and we were faced with the remnants of heavy overnight rain (a posh way of saying bloody big puddles!!) which continued well into the day and even with the advantage of the car running 11^th on the road the stages were in a waterlogged and slippery condition, proven well by the pair having 3 spins on the first stage alone! Things didn’t improve on the second test and we were lucky not to roll over when the car went light over a crest and spun sideways hitting the banking nose end first and forcing the car onto two wheels as it scrabbled for grip still going sideways down the road. Fortunately (and slightly embarrassingly) it happened on a corner with a large number of spectators who pointed Graham in the right direction and the car was soon on its way with only 30 seconds or so lost. That said it certainly woke said spectators up who were sitting on the banking enjoying tea and sausage sandwiches before our arrival!

All this fun and games left the service crew (who were also enjoying tea and sausage sandwiches till we turned up!) with plenty of work to do at the mornings 30 minute service halt with the sump guard, front bumper, wings and steering all needing attention after the incident.

After the mornings fun and games we enjoyed a trouble free run on the rest of the days four stages and this saw the stage times improve greatly. A battle developed for the class win between us and Penrith’s Jonny Sproat in his Corsa but Graham was determined to get his foot down and take advantage of the drying road conditions (also known as frighten Dave to the point new underwear was required!) and eventually emerged the Victor, albeit by only 5 seconds after 42 miles of rallying to finish 1^st in class and 32^nd overall.

Massive thanks go as usual to our service team. Ian, Ali, Steve, Bidwell (AKA Leg-end) and a lovely chap from Preston called Clint who showed up in a van so we took him with us cause he looked lonely!

Also thanks to all of our sponsors, in particular Gerald Davies (we must have used about a million Kwh of electric in the week before the event in his garage burning the midnight oil!), Aztec Signs for the stickers and Below Stairs for the event petrol.