Cruttenden scores points in British Rally Championship

Joe Cruttenden

The second round of the British Rally Championship saw Newhey’s Joe Cruttenden and Chris Ingram, in their Graham Coffey Solicitors/Costa Coffee/Signage Specialists supported Renault Twingo R2 EVO, compete in the Bulldog International rally, based out of Welshpool, Wales.

Saturday saw the event start with 3 Dyfi stages before a return to Welshpool for service, with the pairing setting good times and moving up to 14th overall, leading the R2 Twingo Trophy.

The rally then returned to the same three stages: on the first 2 they were setting times 15 seconds quicker than the first run through and were starting to move up the leader board. But on the 15 mile, 6th stage of the day, the car started showing only 5 litres of fuel was left and 2 miles into the stage the started switching into safe mode, losing them 2 minutes on this long stage. An inspection of the car at the end of the stage did not reveal the reason for the low fuel, so they carried on hoping to get to the next service area. Unfortunately, they ran out of fuel on the road section but due to the kind nature of their main rivals in the R2 Twingo Trophy, they made it to the remote service area.

At service the reason for the lack of fuel became evident, when they pushed the car to the official refuel point and it was discovered that the refuel company had not replaced the fuel cap after the last refuel.

It was at this point the organisers decided that the event was not going to run over the last 3 stages due to it running so late. With the last three stages cancelled, all that was left was to drive back to Welshpool for the finish, unfortunately meaning that they had no time to make up the 13 seconds that would have moved them back into the lead of the Twingo Trophy.

“We had a good clean run over the 1st 5 stages, with Chris getting to grips with the car as we completed more mileage which is very encouraging. It is it gutting that an error by a third party cost us the lead in the R2 Twingo Trophy, but that’s rallying and we will learn from it. We have to think positive and be happy with our pace,” said Cruttenden.

Joe and Chris would like to send a huge thanks to Melvyn Evans Motorsport team for all their hard work both before and during the rally. The pair will be out on the Circuit of Ireland over Easter before the third BRC round, the Pirelli through Keilder Forest.