For the third weekend in succession Manx Motorsport Youth Trust recipient Rob Fagg spent Saturday in the passenger seat.   This time it was on the Cambrian Rally in North Wales alongside 2003 Ford Rallye Sport Ka Championship runner-up Jonny Brown.

Brown has contested the whole of the 2003 series and all the rallies he has competed on so far in his career with James Lester alongside.   This event was to be his first with a different co-driver and also his first using a number system of pace notes from his previous descriptive system.   The event being used as a test to look at possible improvements in his rally set-up.

Stages 1 and 2 saw the crews tackle just under 9 miles on each and this allowed the pairing plenty of time on stage to come to terms with each other.   Remembering that Jonny also had to adjust to the new system of his notes setting two top ten 1400 times was not bad going.   This was continued on stage 3 and with this confidence growing in the notes, but it then came to a wet end.

The shortest stage of the event, SS4 - Legends Park 2, just 2.75 miles long saw the pairing retire from the event midway through.   On a tight corner the car under steered and left the road landing in a water filled ditch.   The car immediately began to fill with water and the crew scrambling from the stricken Ka.   With the amount of water in the ditch and by now in the car there was little hope of returning it to the road.

"It was a very unfortunate accident that neither Jonny or I fully know what happened.   The car has under steered off the line and onto the slippery outside sending us into the water filled ditch" explained Rob, "I am of cause disappointed as coming to the event I hoped for a good run alongside Jonny. He has had a great year in the Ka and over the 4 stages I can see why.   He is a smooth committed driver and will be fighting for the championship again next year no doubt."

Rob now looks forward to a break till his next scheduled event is on the 7th December the Galloway Hills.   Although he hopes to fins a run for the Grizedale Stages the day before.   Between now and then though he will be socialising with his fellow Ka competitors of 2003 at the Annual Awards Dinner.

Thanks for continued support goes to: Manx Motorsport Youth Trust, Integrated Capabilities, Aon (IOM) Ltd, Sign and Design, Manx.net, Manx Telecom, and www.rallycodriver.co.uk

Co-ordinator
RF Motorsport
02/11/03