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Rali Mynydd Ddu 1997

Sponsored by Park Garage Ltd

Amman & District Motor Club

4th/5th October 1997

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The Semi-Expert crew of Gareth Jones/Iestyn ap Dafydd emerged as the surprise winners of Amman & District Motor Club's Rali Mynydd Du. The tenth round of the Welsh Road Rally Championship ended in confusion as it became clear that most competitors had misunderstood the regulations regarding Intermediate Time Controls. This resulted in only five crews being fail free at the Finish and many top runners finishing well down the order.

The 44 starters were faced with an excellent 120 mile route in the southern reaches of the Brecon Beacons. Three standard sections preceded the petrol halt at Llandovery before the second half which consisted of two standard and two regularity sections.

The third standard section had a number of controls timed to the second and it was here that the majority of crews missed the fact that, unusually, they had to carry any seconds dropped at one intermediate control on to the next; normal practise is to round back to the previous minute. The same rule applied, as is usual, to the regularity sections as well. However these rules were given greater importance by the fact that the penalty for early arrival was a fail per 10 seconds.

All this was of little importance to the 1996 winning driver, John Evans, who had Ieaun Thomas on the maps. Evans/Thomas only got a few miles into the event before a halfshaft on their Avenger broke. Dai John/Paul Bevan (Toyota Corolla) were also early retirees, they withdrew after damaging their Corolla's exhaust. Jonathan Gwillym/Damian Cole (Ford Escort) also failed to make it to the end of the first sections after damaging their Escort's sump on a deep rut which ran across one of the forest tracks.

Jones/ap Dafydd were one of only a couple of crews to notice the implications of the regulations and thus reaped the rewards and crowned a season which has seen them putting in ever improving results. Peter Zjalic/Richard Preece made it a Toyota Corolla 1-2. They had a difficult event after damaging the steering gear of their car on the same deep rut as Gwillym had hit, while Preece was plagued by illness throughout the night. However the result put them back in contention for the Welsh Standard Production title.

Aled Davies/Clive Selby (Ford Escort) took fourth overall and the Semi-Expert Class in their Escort, while the Novice Award and 11th overall went to the similar car of Robert Rees/Ann Rees. Eighth place was enough for Aled Jones to secure the 1997 Welsh Championship Semi-Expert Navigator award with two rounds to spare.

The rather odd result from the Mynydd Du meant that the overall Welsh Championship position was now wide open with a number of crews still in the running. Baron Glaze/Pete Davies (Ford Escort) finished ninth and they still led their respective tables. Their main challengers, Dennis Quinn/Andrew Thomson (Ford Escort), only managed 15th and would require two good results on both the remaining rounds to take the title. Pete Cotton/Dave Pitchford (Ford Escort), who had taken the top championship score on the previous two rounds, finished in 31st after being caught out by a secret regularity check whose control board had been placed just around a corner. The hapless Midlands pairing failed to stop before passing the control board, which was the timing marker - they were almost two minutes early.

The quickest crew of the night were Alyson Acreman/Byron Jones who dropped only 3.26 in their new Nova, unfortunately they fell foul of the intermediate time controls and ended up with 6 fails, putting them in 18th place.

The final placed finishers in 33rd place were Ian Elias/Joel Haylock (Ford Escort) who ended up with 101 fails.

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OVERALL RESULTS

	Pos	Driver	Navigator	Car	Penalty
	1	Gareth Jones	Iestyn ap Dafydd	Toyota Corolla	9m 06s
	2	Peter Zjalic	Richard Preece	Toyota Corolla	13m 01s
	3	Jason Harries	John Hands	Ford Escort	17m 20s
	4	Aled Davies	Clive Selby	Ford Escort	23m 36s
	5	Carl O'Grady	Gwyn Williams	VW Golf	25m 18s
	6	Clive Greves	Rob Duke	Vauxhall Chevette	1F 6m 34s
	7	Neil Griffiths	Bernard Hill	Ford Escort	1F 10m 36s
	8	Gethin Lewis	Aled Jones	Ford Escort	1F 11m 57s
	9	Baron Glaze	Pete Davies	Ford Escort	1F 12m 18s
	10	Clive Wakeley	Dave Howells	Ford Escort	1F 14m 56s
	11	Robert Rees	Ann Rees	Ford Escort	1F 46m 17s
	12	Huw Richards	Derek Davies	Opel Manta	2F 46m 17s
	13	Graham Evans	Ian Mills	Toyota Corolla	3F 7m 32s
	14	Toby Adam	Andrew Card	Ford Escort	3F 9m 30s
	15	Dennis Quinn	Andrew Thomson	Ford Escort	4F 3m 51s
	16	Dai Wilmer	Darren Morris	Ford Escort	4F 16m 59s
	17	Darren Jones	Darren Miles	Ford Escort	4F 19m 44s
	18	Alison Acreman	Byron Jones	Vauxhall Nova GSi	6F 3m 26s
	19	Karl Hancocks	Steve Durbin	Ford Escort	6F 10m 01s
	20	Stuart Thomas	Adrian Belcher	Peugeot 309 GTi	6F 26m 17s
	21	Huw Evans	Patrick Walsh	Ford Escort	7F 4m 20s
	22	Nick Broadway	Andy Oakes	Ford Sierra	8F 27m 21s
	23	Wyn Owens	Hefin Owens	Ford Escort	9F 8m 00s
	24	Richard Roberts	Steven Roberts	Ford Escort	12F 22m 18s
	25	Kevin Ikin	Chris Rowlands	Ford Escort	13F 9m 09s
	26	Cyril Crook	Chris Ware	Talbot Sunbeam	13F 14m 00s
	27	Dylan Parry	Mark Lloyd	Ford Escort	15F 14m 17s
	28	John Usher	Brian Usher	Ford Escort	16F 22m 19s
	29	Dai Bevan	Owen Dodd	Ford Escort	18F 7m 54s
	30	Robert Carr	Gavin Davies	Ford Escort	20F 29m 45s
	31	Pete Cotton	Dave Pitchford	Ford Escort	27F 10m 18s
	32	William Johnson	Justin Thomas	Ford Escort	46F 62m 07s
	33	Ian Elias	Joel Haycock	Ford Escort	101F 14m 51s

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