RALLY EXTRA
Ceredigion based Spencer Sport recorded the team’s first ever outright victory at the Plains Rally in Mid -Wales when Tom Cave and his co-driver James Morgan tasted success driving a Ford Fiesta R5.
The pair led the event from start to finish and ended the day with a winning margin of 27-seconds and team mates Jamie Jukes and Dave Williams of Llandysul in their Mitsubishi Mirage would also have been a assured a top-ten finish in respect of their impressive times on six of the event’s seven stages, but a light roll on stage two saw them lose too much time but overall the Spencer Sport team confirmed that they were pleased with the performance of the Mitsubishi Mirage
With eight weeks between round three of the MSA British Rally Championship, the Pirelli Carlisle Rally and round four, the RSAC Scottish Rally, the team took the decision to enter the fourth round of the BTRDA Rally Series near Welshpool and an opportunity to carry out some development work with the cars and test the Michelin tyres in competitive conditions, to ensure that everything is ‘race-ready’ when the team heads to Scotland in June.
Driving the Spencer Sport Ford Fiesta R5 that has taken them to fourth place in the British Rally Championship standings, Cave and Morgan laid down a marker on the very first stage by setting the fastest time by nine seconds, ahead of Julian Reynolds and Patrick Walsh in a Ford Focus WRC. Whilst they lost out by two seconds to their rivals on stage two, Cave and Morgan were quickest again through stage three and consequently entered the lunchtime service halt with an 11-second lead.
With four stages left and the Fiesta running perfectly, it was clear to see that Cave and Morgan were enjoying the experience and went on two win all of the afternoon’s four stages, the car and the Michelin tyres working in perfect harmony in the dry and dusty conditions. At the finish,the time sheets revealed that Cave who is based in Mid-Wales and Morgan had won by an impressive margin of 27-seconds.
The next event for the Spencer Sport team is the RASC Scottish Rally that takes place on 25th June.
Photos: RallySport Media.