Jason Pritchard followed up his impressive victory in round one of the Mintex MSA British Historic Rally Championship with another outstanding performance to take top spot in the second round of the championship in Dolgellau, North Wales this Saturday (2nd April).
Pritchard and co-driver Phil Clarke kick started their season in style with victory in the opening round and produced another solid round of rallying to make it two in a row.
The 27-year-old from Builth Wells was understandably thrilled to win again and spoke highly of the car, his co-driver and was over the moon to join an elite list of names on the famous trophy:
“I’m delighted with finishing top of the pile this weekend, it was a tough rally and to finish ahead of some fantastic drivers and cars, is a brilliant feeling. “It was another perfect day for me and like the last round, we had no problems with the car and there wasn’t a mark on it at the end, I have to thank Viking Motorsport for getting the car ready for me, it’s such a pleasure to drive. “Phil Clarke was superb and produced another faultless job co driving, having him next to me in the car, allows me the confidence to achieve these wonderful results.”
Like the first round, competitors woke to heavy rain on the Saturday morning and this impacted Pritchard’s approach to the rally:
“Once we woke up and saw the weather, we knew we were in for another wet day of rallying. This was felt as soon as the first stage when we had a small scare, the car went side wards as we broke on the very first corner of the stage. “After this, I knew exactly how I had to drive as the last thing I wanted to do was put the car off and ultimately not finish the rally. It was a patient approach and we were delighted to find out that we were up on our closest Historic rival after the first stage.”
Pritchard continued this form into stages 2 and 3. Stage 3 offered drivers the longest challenge of the day, with 12 miles of high speed action. Pritchard, the defending British Historic Rally champion, managed to take more time off his nearest rivals before heading back to service. Over the next two stages, Pritchard continued to push the pace and after stage 5, the Welshman found himself 8 seconds ahead of his nearest rival:
“I pushed hard over stages 4 and 5 and was delighted but not complacent going into the final stage to hear of the lead. Phil asked me what I wanted to do over stage 6, my mind-set was to ‘have a go’ but I didn’t want to do anything that would impact my Championship chances. “We had a scare when we thought we might have had a puncture after the first mile on the last stage, but we put this behind us and pushed hard over the final miles. The puncture didn’t materialise and we put in a really quick time over the last stage, I felt really good behind the wheel and we ended up winning the rally by 21 seconds.”
Victory in round two sees Pritchard in a strong position but something he won’t take for granted as he looks ahead to round 3:
“I know how quickly it can all change so I’ll be working just as hard in the next round. I have to thank the team that were there helping me on the rally but also everyone else involved before we even started on Saturday. Thank you to my sponsors who are a huge help: North Road Garage Builth Wells, FCS Laser Mail, Pirelli and Viking Motorsport. “Also, a big thank you to the unsung heroes of the weekend: all the marshals who stood out in the rain for us again and the organisers for giving us a fantastic event.”
