It was a busy day for Geoff Jones Motorsport, with a range of cars over the entire field being catered for by the experienced team from Machynlleth.

Returnee Matt Edwards hasn’t been in his Escort for nearly ten months. After a Geoff Jones Motorsport refresh and new livery, Edwards had an action plan for the day and stuck to it. With stage times regularly just outside the top ten overall, Edwards was to take honors in both the historic and two-wheel-drive section. There was also another historic class win in the Jordan Road Surfacing Avenger of Baz Jordan and James Gratton-Smith. Fresh from Barbados, Baz slipped back into the British forests with ease, taking the class lead from stage one and maintaining that lead all day.

Back with some fresh panels after the Plains Rally, Winner Garage business partners Bob Morgan and Adie Williams were keen to get back in the forests. A steady start for the pairing was encouraged as they moved up the field over the course of the day, finally finishing 19th overall. Also in the four-wheel-drive category and back in his R4 specification Impreza, the Swift Group backed crew of Pete Smith and Alan Walker made steady progress up the leaderboard all day as Pete acclimatized to the Geoff Jones Motorsport prepared car.

In the front-wheel-drive section and on only his third event, Ben Crealey was joined by Dan Nieroda. After a quick first two stages the Fiesta lost a rear wheel in stage four. The pair had kept up such pace, they still lead their class. A push on the last two saw them win N3 class by over a minute.

A brand new engine for Steve Ward and Mike Crawford was installed earlier in the week at Geoff Jones Motorsport, so the Woodpecker Stages was a learning curve for Ward. The ‘Safari-Spec’ Mk1 Escort looking good with the extra bars and lights.

The VERallyFirst section saw a great first stage for James Watkins and Caron Tomlinson taking the lead, but as the pace increased a mistake cost the Welshpool driver as he returned home in fourth place of the hotly contested Rally First 1.4 class. In the RF1.0 section, it was another clean run for Claire in her one litre Nissan Micra, picking up third in class and maintaining third overall in the VERallyFirst 1.0 Championship.