Manx Motorsport Youth Trust recipient Matthew Bettridge along with co-driver Robert Fagg will travel across the Irish Sea to contest the Willingham’s Recovery North Humberside Forest Rally on Saturday 29^th March. The event is the second round of the Ford Rallye Sport Ka Championship and there is an all time record 27 Ka’s taking the start. The cars will tackle a stage on Olivers Mount, the motorcycle race track in Scarborough before heading in the North Yorkshire forests for the remainder of the rally.

After the disappointment on the Malcolm Wilson Rally earlier this month the pairing will be hoping to get some mileage under their belts. On that occasion it was a very brief outing when the car lost all drive within site of the finish on stage 1. Such little time in the car meant that it was impossible to gauge themselves against the other crews and to get the best set-up on the car for the forest stages they will tackle this year.

Since returning from Cumbria the gearbox has been rebuilt and the car checked over. Thanks goes to the lads at Bettridge Motors and George Collister for getting the gearbox fixed in time for the event.

"This year is about gaining as much experience from the events as possible" explained Matthew. "Rob and I only teamed up this year and for both of us it is our first season competing in the UK. We have just got to learn too work with each other while also learning the car on a unfamiliar surface, I do not see a problem."

Although they are novices on the forest events they are looking forward to the closed road rallies. "Living on the Isle of Man we get to use some of the finest tarmac rally stages in Europe for our club events. So we are looking forward to the Jim Clark and of course our home event the Manx Trophy," said Robert.

Matthew had a fine 20^th on the Manx Trophy last year in his first outing in a left hand drive car, that being a Polo and Robert was the winning co-driver alongside service crew member George Collister.

Obviously it will be worth keeping an eye out for this crew then once they hit the sealed surface events.

Thanks for support in 2003 goes to: - Manx Motorsport Youth Trust, Bettridge Motors, Manx Telecom, Manx Automobile Assistance, Integrated Capabilities, Magic Carpets, Aon (IOM) Ltd and of course the service crew Pat Bettridge, George Collister, Andy Mainwaring and Paul Gelling.