by Geoff Mayes
Guy Wilks triumphed on the Wales Rally GB at the weekend, the final round of the 2007 Tesco 99 Octane MSA British Rally Championship, and in doing so was crowned as British champion with a perfect score of 100 points.
With this years finale split into two point scoring events you would have forgiven the title protagonists for playing a strategic game on Friday. But after six stages run in some of the most treacherous weather seen in recent years, the top three positions, not only in the British Championship, but also amongst the overall group N contenders, was held by Wilks, Gwyndaf Evans and Mark Higgins - in that order.
However it had not all been plain sailing. Higgins had struggled with minor diff problems for most of the day and whilst Wilks had entered the final stage 48 seconds ahead of his team mate, Gwyndaf Evans, a blistering time through the fog for Evans saw him go seventh fastest overall and end the day a mere 3.2 seconds adrift of his team-mate.
Wilks had suffered from poor visibility when his lamp pod came unsecured and left him with just the sidelights for most of the stage. But this was immaterial now as Wilks had another 20 points to his credit and his closest rival, reigning champion Mark Higgins, only picked up 16.
With the British Championship contenders contesting their final round over days two and three the clocks were reset. However a favourable road position for the top three would always give them a slight advantage.
Wilks made the most of it and controlled the rally from the front, with his only major hiccup being when his engine cut out for no reason on Sunday afternoon. After resetting the master switch the ‘works’ Mitsubishi pilot was able to cruise home quite comfortably, taking a winning margin of nearly 2 minutes with him back to Cardiff for the ceremonial finish.
Second place in both the rally and the championship went to Mark Higgins, who had to nurse the car home with a gearbox that was slowly eating itself up.
