The weekend of the 15th / 16th June saw two very successful motorsport events take place at the Blyton Park Driving Centre.
On Saturday 15th there was the Rex Premier Anniversary Stages which had 64 crews competing over 8 stages. The contest for victory was very much between two crews. Four times Premier Rally winner Rob Swann [2011, 2012, 2013 & 2014] with Steve McNulty in a Fiesta WRC and Dan Bird & Richard Scarbrough in a Fiesta R5. Dan & Richard took a 6 sec lead on SS1 and that was vital as the two crews both set fastest stage times during the day (and were equal fastest on SS2). In the end Dan & Richard won by just 10 sec from Rob & Steve. This was Dan’s first stage rally win and also his first win on a Dukeries MC event. (His father Keith Bird won the Dukeries Rally back in 1989 in a 6R4). The full results of the Rex Premier Anniversary Stages can be found at https://www.rallies.info/res?e=582
The event ran with very few delays and the results were final and awards presented by 6.15pm. It was important to finish the Premier Anniversary Stages promptly because that gave the event organisers more time to re-set the stage layouts to become Tests 1 & 2 of the Rex YSTRA Targa Rally in preparation for the following morning.
The Rex YSTRA Targa Rally on Sunday was a completely different event but no less competitive. The Interclub permitted event which was a round of several Targa Rally Championships, had 10 test; 6 at Blyton and 4 longer tests at Ludford. For the Clubman event there were 8 separate tests around the Blyton track.
The complexities of the Targa tests are very demanding for both the driver and the navigator at speed, but the most successful crews are those that completed the tests correctly with no additional penalties. This was shown again on the YSTRA where Car 2 Chris & Jamie Wolley were victorious with a time of 1hr 36 min 2 sec just 22 secs ahead of the 2022 YSTRA winners John & Ethan Davies. The Rex YSTRA Clubman Rally was won by Ruben & Richard Hage with a time of 58min 8secs and again they had a clean run without any additional penalties. The full results of the Rex YSTRA Targa [Interclub event} are at https://www.rallies.info/res?e=583 and the results of the Rex YSTRA Targa [Clubman event] are at https://www.rallies.info/res?e=588
This weekend of motorsport was a tremendous effort by the organising teams of both the ‘Premier’ and the ‘YSTRA’ which included several people from ‘other’ clubs (and many who were involved with both events). A huge thank-you also to our event sponsors Nigel and Louise Wetton / Rex Pet Hotel.