"Matt did a brilliant job calling the complicated pace notes over the humps and bumps, it was often difficult to keep the Ford Fiesta on the ground," explained Jardine. "Matt warned of stones buried in the snow on the inside of the corner on stage six but I hit them. However, we managed to limp back to the final twenty minute service with a broken front suspension."
Within minutes of hearing the news Powers and Rogers had sourced the only spare fiesta suspension in the service area and stripped and fitted the new components keeping the car in the rally.
"That's the second time Den and Andy have saved the day for us as they did exactly the same on the Roger Albert Clark Rally last November - they are absolute heroes," said Jardine.
After eight stages totalling 140 kilometres the Mountain Rally Norway was won by three minutes 11 seconds by Anders Grondal in his Subaru Impreza WRC. Following a drama on special stage seven when Mads Ostberg's damaged car caused a stage blockage, this affected many teams including the only other from the UK, the northern Ireland crew of Shaun Gallagher and Charley McGanty whose challenge was thwarted by the incident.
Jardine summed up the success of the event: "To enjoy the loan of such a prolific new rally car as M-Sport's Fiesta has been a privilege. The car is nimble, fast and sure footed and is already a success around Europe as drivers clamour to acquire one of the new ST150's for the
FIA world support series or their own national championships. The car is simply a brilliant package and I would like to thank Malcolm Wilson of M-Sport and Ford for allowing Matt and I such a great opportunity. Rally guru John Haugland was instrumental in setting up our rally training and participation and has been overly generous in all his support through out the event."
The next event for the
Sportinglife.com rally team will be the first round of the British National Ancro Series the Rallye Sunseeker in Bournemouth in the third week of February.
