David had struggled with the set-up on his Subaru Impreza N14, but still proved that, in the right conditions, the car is already competitive, and third overall in the BRC helped him maintain his overall championship lead.
The second works Mitsubishi, driven by Irishman Phillip Morrow, ran solidly in the top five for most of the event until the 2007 Mitsubishi Evo Challenge winner crashed into a gate on SS14, forcing him out of the day’s action. Morrow returned on the final day to collect some useful team points for Mitsubishi.
Taking his second top four finish in a row was young James Wozencroft, possibly the star of the rally. The organisers certainly thought so as they awarded the 23 year old, on only his second tarmac rally in a 4 wheel drive car, the star driver award.
By contrast Wozencroft’s team-mate, Rob Swann, had a rally to forget. A puncture on day one did not help but then technical issues on day two saw the N14 driver sidelined once again. A year before Rob had fought right to the end for the final podium position, battling with Wyn Humphries. This year was very different. Humphries also had a rally he’d rather not talk about. After struggling with his tyre choice he then suffered an engine fire on Friday that forced him to retire from the leg.
Stuart Jones was another to have a disastrous rally. After a broken hub forced him to SupeRally on Thursday an errant stone damaged a pulley on the opening run on Friday and forced him out for good.
Brian O’Mahony finally put his bad luck behind him as the Renault Clio Super 1600 pilot was the first two-wheel drive home in seventh position, one-spot behind Darren Gass.
Behind him there had been a battle royal for Class R2 honours. At the start of the final day it had been Andreas Sjolander leading from Luke Pinder and Adam Gould. But just one stage later it was young Jason Prichard out in front. Sjolander had crashed his Fiesta in a big way, whilst both Pinder and Gould suffered mechanical gremlins.
