Two rallies in one weekend

Joe Cruttenden

A busy weekend of rallying saw Rally Co-Driver Joe Cruttenden, from Newhey, competing in two rallies . Joe’s first event was the Malcolm Wilson Stages, the second round of the BTRDA championship. On the event Joe was navigating for local driver Darren Rutter, in his newly re-built, Lakeside Mortgage supported, Ford Escort Mk1.

The Rally, based at the home of the Ford World Rally Team, at M-Sport in Cockermouth, covered seven stages through the forest of the Lake District. Using stages that have been used on many famous rallies, and are notorious for their fast flowing corners and slippery surfaces.

Joe and Darren started with a steady run through the first stage, but a big spin on ss2 lost them a bit of time. Following service the crews tackled two Grizedale stages, which were the slipperiest of the day. "The combination of the mud and stones made the stages hard to read and grip varied massively causing us to have 2 further spins", Joe said. 

The pair finished the rally eighth in the very competitive two wheel drive 1600 class. 

On the Sunday Joe then had a short trip to Three Sisters race track at Wigan, to Co-driver for 14-year-old Josh Cornwell, in the first round of the F1000 Junior rally Championship.

This is Joe’s second season with Josh and after some out of season testing with ex British Rally Champion David Higgins, the pair hope to challenge the more experienced young drivers.

Twelve stages on the short but twisty circuit had the top four separated by only a few seconds. But although the lads set fast times they were unable to climb into the top three and finished a very close fourth.

"This was a great start to the season", said Joe, "Josh was far more confident in the car and he was competitive against the older drivers, we hope improve in a couple of weeks when we compete on the Lee Holland Stages on the Anglesey Circuit."

Joe will be competing on the Epynt stages in South Wales next weekend in a Darrian T90 GTR alongside John Indri.