It was another fraught rally for Dolgellau’s Sion Ellis as he and Dan Nieroda from Chester overcame suspension troubles to finish last weekends Nicky Grist Stages, based in the forests surrounding Epynt Military Ranges.

With high hopes for the rally, the Morris Lubricants backed team were hoping for a good event after winning the Vital Equipment Rally First class in Somerset. But any hopes were dashed early on as the suspension on the front of the car suffered a failure. “The top mount is loose,” explained Sion “We have three more stages to do and we will have to nurse the car through them so we can get it back to service and hopefully we can fix it.”

While attempting a steady run through the following stage, the suspension was to fail completely putting the wheel at a dangerous angle and damaging the mount. At the end of the stage and with some help from fellow competitors, the suspension was to be held together with a pair of mole grips in an attempt to get the car through fifteen more miles of forestry before servicing back at the Royal Welsh Showground in Builth Wells.

With no spare component available, the AutoMax crew resorting to welding the mount in place to prevent the suspension from failing once more and allowing the Welsh pair to continue and collected Rally First and Welsh Championship points.

Heading out for the afternoon loop of stages, and with over three minutes lost to the head of the field, the aim was to finish and put in some good stage times. Using the first stage of the final four to build up trust and confidence in the car (and the welding) the crew were to set a good pace, back in the top five of the Rally First section to reclaim over thirty positions in the overall standings and climb from fifteenth to ninth.

“It certainly wasn’t the way we wanted the rally to go and we only really felt like we got going as the day was finishing.” Said Dan at the finish in Builth Wells. “We showed good pace this afternoon and I’m grateful to the team and everyone that managed to help us get to the end.”