On Sunday the 1st May, Mini Sport travelled to South Wales to support all Mini Sport Mini Cup contenders in the second round of our acclaimed Championship. The Dixie’s Historic Challenge, organised by South Wales Automobile Club, is a challenging asphalt stage based on Epynt, an upland area of Mid-Wales. This arduous stage was introduced to the Mini Sport Mini Cup, just last year and was completely new to many of the competitors.
Both Mini Sport and the HRCR, were relieved to see the return of Jim Brindle and navigator Darren Meadows to the championship, following a damaging tumble at the AGBO Stages in the previous round. Jim, who’s Mini Clubman fell victim to braking issues has been working hard on repairing his Mini and getting it rally ready in time for the Dixie’s challenge. With a little advice and some Mini Sport parts, Jim returned to the second round with a completely repaired Clubman and tackled the stage with no unfortunate incidents.
For the second round of the championship, we continued with the popular raffle in collaboration with Yokohama UK. This time, Clubman driver Eric Davies was the lucky winner and was awarded a set of 10” Yokohama A032R Tyres for enhanced performance in wet conditions, improved handling and high-speed stability in competition. Eric will be able to take these for a spin on the third round of the championship on the Red Dragon IT Stages in a couple of weeks.
Despite many Mini’s finishing on the day, Bruce Mills and his newly converted Mini Clubman were demonstrating a fantastic use of time and technique but travelled round a corner a little too fast causing the Mini to veer off course, where he encountered a large rock side-on. Although Bruce and his navigator, Paul Kendrick are somewhat unscathed from the experience, the Mini suffered some exceptional damage just one mile of the end of stage 9. With the next round just three weeks away, Bruce is already making plans to resurrect the body shell and repair it in time. Bruce said that ‘…it was a shame as we were doing so well but it’s all part of rallying’. We hope to see both Bruce Mills and Paul Kendrick on the 28th.
Throughout the day, we witnessed high-quality performances from some of the UK’s most dedicated rally contenders with Mini’s from all classes tackling the stage for the first time.
Mini Sport’s very own Rob Eastwood, travelled down to Epynt to help prep the Mini’s prior to the competition. Rob described the second round of the championship as ‘a challenging day with difficult conditions, it was a first time for many on Epynt and so it was great to see so many Mini’s get to the finish line’.
After a fantastic day of back-to-basics rallying, it was HRCR and Mini Sport backed Clive King & Anton Bird, who came out with the overall win – taking yet another victory in their notable 1964 Mini Cooper S. Please be sure to visit the official Mini Sport Mini Cup Facebook page for more exclusive photos, footage and news direct from the championship organisers and competitors.
The next round of the Mini Sport Mini Cup will take place on Saturday the 28th May on the Red Dragon IT Stages, Down Ampney. The third round of the Mini Sport Mini Cup will return to a Cotswold venue for a run over eight stages with the additional pressures of a water splash which ensured some exciting moments in the previous year of the championship.
Keep updated on the Mini Sport Ltd, Mini Sport Mini Cup and HRCR Facebook pages for more information on the UK’s fastest growing Mini Rally Championship and how to get involved.
Extra Special Credit to Rally Sport Media for photos.
