Scottish duo Euan Thorburn and co-driver Paul Beaton driving their Ford Focus WRC took a comfortable win on last weekend’s Nicky Grist Stages Rally, writes Mark Griffin.

Based at Strand Street, The Groe car park and rugby ground the event had moved entirely into the centre of Builth Wells where the organisers were bringing the rally to a new audience.

Town Mayor Gwyn Davies flagged the crews away from the Groe on Saturday morning for eight times stages totalling over 40 stage miles in the heartland of Welsh rally territory, notably the smooth forest tracks of Crychan, Halfway and a further two stages on the Epynt military ranges.

Jason Pritchard and co-driver Steve McPhee wheeled out the North Road Garage historic specification MK 2 Escort. Jason has mainly driven four wheel drive cars in recent months and the local pairing entered the event to reacquaint themselves with the rear wheel drive Escort and the local stages. After a fought start where conditions were very slippery and an incorrect tyre choice caused a couple of spins they settled into the afternoon loop of stages setting good times and securing the historic class win.

The evergreen Dai Block and Glyn Price finished 57th overall / 6th in class from a field of 130 starters in their BMW E30.

At the front of the field Thorburn dominated, his only problem being a small glitch with the gearbox which handed the lead briefly to Stephen Petch and Michael Wilkinson (Ford Fiesta WRC) however from stage three onwards Thorburn regained and extended his lead to almost 1 min 2 seconds by the end of the rally. Petch secured a fine second while Sam Bilham and Patrick Walsh took the final podium place in third.

Event sponsor for the tenth year in succession and former WRC co-driver; Nicky Grist was pleased with the running of the event “we implemented a lot of changes for this year’s event, the biggest one being moving the home of the event into Builth Wells town centre, and it’s been a great success”.