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Trackrod Forestry Stages – 27th September 2014 Morris Lubricants BTRDA 1400 Championship

01/10/2014
by Andrew TradeWeb Support
The 2014 Morris Lubricants BTRDA 1400 Championship has been a pretty dramatic year and
last weekends Trackrod Forestry Stages did nothing to change that opinion when the eighth
round started from the expansive Pickering Showground in Yorkshire. 31 crews were entered
in the 1400 section and would be covering 45 miles over 5 stages through the fast and
challenging forests of Dalby, Langdale, Cropton, Staindale and Gale Rigg.
 
Up to the Trackrod event no competitor had managed to stamp their control on the
Championship and with this being the penultimate event it was now or never for seven crews
if they hoped to go to the final round in North Wales with an advantage over the rest. Pre
season favourites Mat Smith and Giles Dykes were on their home event but with two
retirements already against three wins they still had a lot of work to do to move up from
their fourth place. Also needing a big score were the Warrington team of Justin Lawson and
Paul Hargreaves who were down in seventh place with only one win. Choosing to sit out this
event were Championship leaders Ryan Weston and Mark McCulloch from Aberdeen as they
had already scored on seven rounds and due to the scoring system chose to miss the event in
order to make a final impact on the last round. For the Hull based mixed partnership of
Marcel Freling and Karen Robinson they were currently in second place, but some poor scores
in the early part of the year was making their chances of holding of the chasing crews far
more difficult. Looking to spoil everyone’s points haul were David Bennett and Alistair McNeil
who although their 2014 Championship hopes had been dashed by four retirements still had
the speed to get amongst the leaders, if only they could maintain reliability. Finally making
everyone look over their shoulders were third placed Dan Gray and Matt Rogers from
Gloucestershire, who while they had not won an event had had three successive second
places and were now making rapid progress up the leaderboard.
 
Given the year so far we perhaps shouldn’t have been surprised to see the seasons dramas
continuing as five miles into the 10.5 mile first stage Mat Smith put his Ford KA off into a
ditch. In trying to regain the road they broke a driveshaft and were forced to limp out of the
stage incurring a max stage penalty time of 20 mins and leaving them languishing down in
last place. However they managed to get the car fixed and from then it was a matter of
damage limitation as they still tried to recover what points they could.
 
This left Bennett and Lawson to finish the first stage on exactly the same time down to a
tenth of a second with Gray in third but a massive 32 seconds slower. Freling was making a
very slow start being over a minute off the pace at the front to lie in 9th. The second stage
went Bennett’s way pulling out 8 seconds on Lawson while Freling made a big leap up to 5th
place and Clive Anstey/Tim Currie holding third, but it was disaster for Gray who retired his
Peugeot with engine issues. Stage 3 again literally turned the Championship race on its head
as Lawson rolled his Vauxhall Nova and although the damage was relatively light they lost the
windscreen in the roll so things were going to get pretty draughty as they endeavoured to
keep going. However such was their lead over third place Anstey they still retained second
and hoped to keep running in order to pick up a good points score.
 
Unfortunately Stage 4 was not going to be so kind to Lawson and Hargreaves as part way
through the stage a rear wheel sheared off their car, presumably as a result of their earlier
roll, making the car un-driveable and instantly removing any hopes they had of winning this
years Championship. Bennett again took his fourth fastest stage time to increase his lead to 2
mins 55 seconds over Anstey while Freling had moved into third place 35 seconds further
back.
 
With no change over the final 8 mile Dalby stage it was a delighted Bennett and McNeil who
returned to the Pickering Showground to take their second win of the year and satisfaction
that they had ended their retirement jinx. Anstey was surprised to come in second and taking
his highest finish of the year especially as he had rolled his car just two weeks earlier on a
non Championship event. For Freling and Robinson their steady run had brought them third
overall and moved them to the top of the Championship leader board going into the final
round. As for Smith and Dykes they managed to get through all the remaining stages to finish
15th overall but nearly 9 mins behind Bennett. However more importantly they picked up a
very valuable 21 pts to put them in fifth place in the title chase and still leave them in with a
good chance of the Championship win. For Gray although the retirement has hurt his chances
he is also still in the running but will need Smith to have a worse day than the Trackrod was.
 
Current Top Six Championship Positions:
1. Marcel Freling – 150 pts
2. Clive Anstey – 145 pts
3. Ryan Weston - 143 pts
4. Matthew Jackson – 139 pts
5. Matthew Smith – 138 pts
6. Dan Gray – 134 pts
 
The final and deciding round of this exciting Championship will be in just under three weeks
with the Cambrian Rally on the 18th October based in Llandudno.
 
Further details can be found on the Championship website www.btrdarally.com and at
 

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