Welsh Motorsport

2010

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Sion & Gary 2009

Sion & Gary Matthews finished 5th O/A and clinched the 1.4C class for 1400cc 8-valve cars in the Millers Oil 1400 BTRDA championship 2009 in Sions first year of Forest Rallying. They wish to thank all their sponsors and friends who helped this dream come true. Sponsors: Mam and dad, nan and grandad, Matthews Auto Salvage, AFG, Mon MOT, Vaynol Plumbing, Demon Tweeks, and Barnes Engineering for building such a good 8-valve engine mid-season.

Service and Repairs: Dad, Mam, Elis, Darren, Gruff, Endaf, Aron, Frank, Martyn, Angie, Spud, Lee.

Sion wants to thank Gary for Co-driving, showing him the ropes, paying for a lot of it, building and re-building the car and for being strong enough to drag the little car out of the ditch on the Woodpecker!

Gary wants to thank Sion for pedalling the little red car so quickly and not crashing too often. A ride to remember.

Round 1: The 2009 year started off in February with the snowy Wyedean Rally in South Wales, where Sion and Gary shocked the top runners with their pace, putting much faster machinery in the shade. Seeded at 232 (32) they were held up by slower cars who were unable to pull to the side in the deep snow. They caught and past 5 cars in the first 5 mile stage! They still finished a brilliant 5th O/A 1400cc, and 1st of the 8-valve cars. Could have been 3rd? Could have put it off!!

Round 2: This was followed by 7th O/A on the Malcolm Wilson Rally, a result that should have been a top 4, but for bent suspension and buckled wheels on a concrete bridge lip that had been unearthed by M-sport testing the previous Thursday in the Greystoke Stage. Clear winners of the 1.4C Class.

Round 3: The Somerset Rally was a disaster when a broken CV joint should have ended their rally after only 5 miles. Forward thinking Gary had insisted on carrying spare Drive shafts in the car, so they changed it mid-stage and ended up 2nd in class when others also fell by the way.

Round 4: The Plains Rally was one of the most exciting of the year, as championship rivals Euros Evans had upped his game, and was swapping seconds with Sion. The two longest stages were also all up-hill and the under-powered and now-tired near standard red Nova was slow. To add to the frustration these two steep stages were the ones repeted in the afternoon. A big push on the final stage through Micks woodyard secured the Class award for our youngster by just 10 seconds!

Round 5: For the Dukeries Rally in Sherwood forest a new engine was built by Lee Barnes Engineering and an Emerald ECU fitted. Rolling road now put the car at 98bhp at 7,200rpm. Doesn't sound much, but it was a vast improvement on the old unit, and it goes like stink!. Not much more can be got out of an eight valve engine anyway. Lying 2nd over-all 1400 when it all went pear-shaped on SS2. 5th gear (100mph) and a bump in a dip sends the car barrel-rolling over a hedge and into a field. First retirment of the year. And the car was a mess!

Believe it or not, after collecting all the bits that fell off, they drove the car out of the stage after the huge roll to this emergency service area, where they wanted to change the leaking radiator to carry on. Team boss (dad) said "No way! Put it on the trailer!".

They later found Sions Helmet was cracked! The C&A MC members only suffered slight bruising to the legs. The perils of the sport.

The car was quickly repaired with help from many friends, inc Sion, Gary, Lee, Darren, Endaf, Aron, Spud and others, while Frank kept the coffee flowing! They only had 3 weeks as the Quinton was the next championship round.

Round 6: 20 days later the car looked as good as new again, here at the camping area at the start of the Quinton Rally. Unfortunately much of the grinding dust had magnatized itself into every relay. The power streering relay failed on SS2, but more disasterous was the fuel relay failing on the penultimate stage, dropped them out of a top 5 1400cc place. Gutted!

Round 7: The next round was the Woodpecker Rally, and the car was now sorted.

Problems here though. Too hot into a freshair downhill 90R on SS2 sent the car jumping tree stumps down the steep bank on the outside of the corner. The car stopped eventually on a stump 30 feet below the level of the road. Gary, not being one to quit easy, used the towrope to spin the car around and manually drag the car back up to the road. The crash had caused significant suspension damage, both front wheels pushed back into the bulkhead. This required some frantic repairs, but with limited service time the team were only able to change the worst side at first service. Thus, the two longest stages were "interesting". The other side was changed at second service.

Sion straightening the door frame

As it turned out, the service crews efforts in helping get a 3rd in class on the Woodpecker would mean it was winner takes all for class 1.4C (8-valve cars) on the final round a month later:

(Penmachno quarry)

Round 8: Home territory on the Cambrian Rally, although Sion had never been in Clocaenog or Penmachno Forests before (too young). The Home crowds though spurred Sion and Gary to a comfortable 5th O/A and the class win, while their rivals Euros Evans pushed too hard to catch up and went off in stage 3 and again permanently in 4. Champions!

A year to tell the grandkids about. Live life to the full. Pay the credit cards off next year!

Lee Matthews