Three stage wins in the last four stages for young Stuart Jones don’t even begin to tell the story of the third and final day of Wales Rally GB. Brechfa 1 saw Julian Reynolds go second quickest and move ahead of McShea who was struggling with problems of his own and would only finish thanks to the SupeRally. Phillip Morrow's awful weekend did not improve when he suffered suspension damage and also retired mid stage.
Stage 15 saw Jones go faster than everyone in the BRC save Alistair McRae and moved him to within sight of David Higgins with 2 stages still to go. And then Brechfa 2, the penultimate stage of the rally, saw Julian Reynolds crash out: "My wipers had failed so I took a wide line through a corner to miss a big puddle, and ended up getting into the loose stuff, which in turn pulled me into a gate post and spat me off down the hillside! I’m really disappointed as I had very few clean runs and yet we were looking so strong towards the end!" he noted.
This meant that suddenly Ryan Champion had over a 5 minute cushion from David Higgins with Stuart Jones now elevated to third but only 3 seconds further back!
The final stage saw Jones push hard, going a full 14 seconds quicker than David Higgins and moving into second. But dramas for rally leader Ryan Champion, whose engine was over heating after having scooped up mud into the radiator, was creating confusion. Ryan had limped out of the stage dropping bucket loads of time but when the car stopped on the road section the SupeRally came into play. As long as the team could get the lifeless Mitsubishi Evo IX back to parc ferme he would be declared a finisher, and with a notional time and a 5 minute time penalty for failing to finish the final stage Ryan would still win the final round of the 2006 Tesco 99 Octane MSA British Rally Championship... but only by 44 seconds from young Stuart Jones!
