But looking firstly at the cars we have two key people at GEMsport headquarters in Dolgellau. Gareth Edwards is in charge of building Meilyr’s car and overseeing all work on events, while Euros Hughes is the man responsible for preparing Elfyn’s car. Euros has been working with me on rally cars for many years - even as far back as when I was contesting events in the Sierra days so his dedication and hard work is extremely long standing. On event Elfyn’s car is looked after primarily by Brian - but Euros is never far from the phone and was particularly delighted with Elfyn’s recent wins in Ireland, a testament to the work that Euros and the team put into building it.
The technicians on each event vary depending on whether they are in the UK or not and the guys come from around the country to converge on the GEMsport service area.
In Ireland we are fortunate to have the services of a couple of technicians from Derek McGarrity which is great while in the UK we have a mix of Welsh regulars, including Kelvin and Nigel while Ian travels from Yorkshire for every event.
There are also important jobs in the motorhome which is a real family affair with Elfyn’s mum Sioned, Meilyr’s mum Mary and my girlfriend Yvonne working all hours on events to ensure that everyone is really well fed - vital when the days are long and the weather often cold and wet.
On events Mike Evans, Meilyr’s dad had a huge role to play looking after our sponsors from
hustings.com and the William Carey Partnership - one of the founders of the GEMpost team and of course passionate supporters of what we are doing.
And between events Nigal is hugely important in ensuring the cars are spotless before events, cleaned afterwards and vans are loaded and unloaded.
We also have our own logistics person Bill Robertson who works extremely hard behind the scenes ensuring everyone has a bed for the night, knows where they should be and he helps the co-drivers with their logistics preparation work.
