Bentham’s David Wright continued his successful 2009 rally season last Saturday (5th September) when he took fourth place on the Woodpecker Stages rally in his Giles Philips Motorsport Mitsubishi Evo 9, keeping up his hopes of taking the BTRDA rally championship title. Grove Hill Garage and Kumho Tyres-backed Wright and co-driver Michael Wilkinson made a good start on the opening two tests of the rally near Ludlow, taking fourth place overall. The event then moved to Radnor forest and Wright emerged from the 18 miles of gravel tracks in third place.
“I was happy to be in third after Radnor. We had some problems with the flatshift gearbox in the opening stages which lost us some time and then a few more seconds were lost when we had a slight excursion off the road in stage two” said Wright.
The rally returned to near Ludlow for the remaining three stages. Wright maintained his third position until the final stage when a charging Andrew Burton pipped him for the position.
“I enjoyed the last three stages, we pushed as hard as we could but we couldn’t keep Burton behind us. I am pleased with the result and it’s down to the last round for the title although we’re now suffering with the dropped scores system. We’ll be making some more improvements to the car in time for the next event and we’ll be trying hard to get the win.”
The final round of the BTRDA championship takes place in October with the Cambrian rally in North Wales.
