Swansea Bay National Rally Build Up

Matt and Richard head back to Wales this weekend for round 6 of the scholarship. This time the pressure is on as they must finish the race in order to upgrade to full International Licences.

“The team from MG sport and Racing have had their work cut out just to repair all the Scholarship cars after the Rally of the Midlands as there was a lot of damage caused leading to crews having points deducted. They have also had to change the cars back from Tarmac to Gravel set-up and so a big thank you must go out to all the team and the hard work they have put in. It will be great to get back into the forests after what seems like an eternity and once again experience the thrill of sliding the MG around at high speed. There will be added pressure as we MUST finish so it will be interesting to see how Rich and myself react to this and see if we can use the experience we have gained on the other events.”

The Rally starts on Saturday morning at 08.30hrs from Swansea City Centre and will see the crews facing 120 miles on the road and 75 very treacherous stage miles in the forests around the Vale of Neath as used on Wales Rally GB, Britain’s round of the World Rally Championship. The forests of Resolven and Rheola will hold new challenges for the Scholarship Contenders as the character of the roads is once again different to what they have experienced before.

“ The roads are similar to those used on the Wales Rally in May although the drops are a lot bigger and the surface is harder with a lot less loose gravel but the corners are once again fast and flowing with little time to relax and very little margin for error so we must concentrate again from the word go. We are leading the championship by 12 points going into this event so the aim is to protect this position rather than going all out for victory. This may seem boring but the main Goal for us both is to win the Scholarship and get a drive in the full blown MG ZR Super 1600 as used in the Junior World Rally Championship. Gwyndaf has already proved that these roads are no match for the strength of the GpN ZR so this allows us to concentrate on the driving rather than having to worry about the car, which is a big advantage with the very little experience we have.”