Mike Reed, co-driven by Scott Cleverdon, contested the 7^th round of the BTRDA series, the Quinton Stages Rally, based in Llandovery.

First up was the Esgair Dafydd stage, which is infamous for being very twisty.  Into the first few corners and it was obvious the tyres weren’t working very well.  The car was just sliding about everywhere.  Mike did a great job to control the car, as there was very little grip.

Next up was a run over Crychan, a very famous RAC stage.  The car was exactly the same in here and with just over 7 miles of stage before service we just had to go through and do the best we could.

The pair were very disappointed to be down in 19^th position, but new tyres were fitted at service and they were aiming to get back up into the top 10.

The next few stages before service were over Epynt, the Welsh military ground.  Only about 10 miles before the next service, but the tyres were definitely working better and there was a lot more feeling from the car.  The push back to the top 10 was halted by the engine developing problems over these few stages.  It seemed to be down on power for a few miles and then it was back to normal.  It kept just almost cutting out.  This really wasn’t good and the times we were able to set weren’t enough to claw back lost time.

This left the pair 16^th going into the next service.  The crew looked at the car to see if they could fix the problem, but it wasn’t evident where the problem lied.  It was put down to an electrical problem which would need more than the 20 minutes service allowed.

They managed to pull up a bit more time over the next 2 stages to hold 13^th position before service.  There were only 2 more stages to go, but 10^th looked within their reach if the electrical problems didn’t get any worse.

This however wasn’t the case.  The car was cutting out a lot over the next few stages which also caused it to cut out on a few of the tighter corners.  This meant no time could be gained back and the final position was 13^th out of the 145.

The points gained have left Mike 11^th out of 135 in the main BTRDA Championship, 3^rd Senior Driver, and Scott is 6^th Under 25 Co-Driver.

The next event is the Woodpecker based in Ludlow on the 3^rd September.  The car is going in for a full engine rebuild and the electrical system is being renewed before then so the team should be on full attack on the next event.