CARRALLYMSA ASPHALT RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP

2009 MSA Asphalt Rally Champion Melvyn Evans returned to the series in fine style at the weekend to win the Tour of Epynt in his Subaru Impreza WRC.

Outright victory on the EDP Photo News & Bob Dowen Rally Services Patriot Stages at the weekend was enough to confirm Damian Cole and James Morgan as 2011 REIS MSA Asphalt Rally Champions.

Having not contested a round of the REIS MSA Asphalt Rally Championship since the Tour of Epynt in March, which he failed to finish, Peter Lloyd returned in fine style on the Eventsigns Mewla Rally to record an outright win.

REIS MSA Asphalt Rally Championship leader Damian Cole delayed joining his family in Devon for a holiday by a couple of days to travel up to the Otterburn Ranges for the Tyneside Stages – and win it!

Darren Gass registered for the REIS MSA Asphalt Rally Championship at Signing-On for the fifth round, the ALMC Stages Rally, and came away with an outright win on the Dublin-based event. Driving a hired Subaru Impreza WRC, the 23-year old from Co. Armagh admitted to a few spins as he acclimatised himself to the unfamiliar car but managed to stay out of the trouble that affected so many of the other front-runners to take maximum Championship points at his first attempt.

As Simon Mauger approached the start of one of the stages during the first leg of Rally of the Midlands on Friday evening, a marshal pointed out to him that his Ford Escort MkII had a rear-wheel puncture. Simon and co-driver Brian Cammack were able to change the offending wheel – hindered by a malfunctioning jack – without losing any time and went on to win the event outright!

Fresh from their win on the recent Jim Clark National Rally, defending REIS MSA Asphalt Rally Champion Damian Cole and co-driver James Morgan will start the Trinity Hyundai Rally of the Midlands, the fourth round of the series, with No.1 on the doors of their Ford Focus WRC in deference to the driver’s victory on the 2010 event.

Defending REIS MSA Asphalt Rally Champion Damian Cole has won the third round of the series, the Jim Clark National Rally, for the second consecutive year but, as it was in 2010, the Hereford driver did not have things all his own way!

There is plenty of talk at present regarding the possibility of closed-road rallying on the UK mainland at some point in the future but, in the here and now, the one event that is afforded that status is the Jim Clark Rally. The National section forms the third round of the REIS MSA Asphalt Rally Championship and crews will be heading up to Kelso in the Scottish Borders on 27th/28th May for this iconic event in the British calendar.