Dusty Seven For Petch

4 seconds. That’s all that separated Stephen Petch Junior from winning the Evo Cup and being on the production class podium after 44 miles of intense rallying!

However things might have been very different if Stephen had had a clear run through the opening 10 and a half mile stage.

Dust was the biggest talking point of the day, and very nearly everyone was hampered by it, but when Stephen encountered 3 other cars in Crychan, the very first stage of the rally, and was slowed to a crawl at times, due to the lack of visibility he knew he had a tough job ahead of him, playing catch up.

Indeed his time through Stage 1 showed exactly how much time he had lost. 32nd overall, and over a minute lost to the quickest Group N car had really put Petch at a disadvantage.

However a steady run over the next few stages meant that he had moved up to 16th overall by stage 5, and was 30 seconds off the current Evo cup leader, Anthony Willmington.

Petch and Wilkinson then upped the pace as a bit of a wind picked up, helping clear the dust. 6th and 7th quickest overall through the 2 Brechfa stages moved the SGP Motorsport run Mitsubishi Evo IX up to 11th overall, and with only the final 12 mile run through Crychan left to go they had their eye on the Evo cup leader. Wilmington was 8 seconds ahead of them going into the final stage.

"For the whole rally we had driven within ourselves, but sitting on the start line for the final stage Michael and I agreed to ‘go for it’ so we really gave it everything" said Petch.

And ‘everything’ was good enough for a blisteringly fast 4th fastest time, quicker than 3 World Rally Cars and good enough to move him from 7th in Group N up to 4th in class! However his time was only 9 seconds faster than Wilmington (still nearly a second a mile faster though!) meaning he missed out on Evo Cup victory by a scant 3.7 seconds!

Stephen added: "We had a good day, with the car running faultlessly throughout. It felt a bit flat in the morning but I think it was just the combination of the heat and the dust. If we hadn’t have lost all that time in the first stage things might have been different, but that’s rallying for you."

Next up for Stephen, Michael and the whole SGP Motorsport team is the second round of the 2006 Tesco 99 Octane British Rally Championship, the tarmac Jim Clarke Rally, which begins on Friday 27th July 2006.

More information on Stephen and the whole SG Petch Motorsport team can be found by visiting www.sgpmotorsport.co.uk/

More information on the Jim Clark Rally can be found by visiting http://www.jimclarkrally.com/

June 9th, 2006