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Hard work finally pays off for GwynneSpeed Rallying!

Posted on Tuesday, 29 April 2008 06:16PM by Gwynnespeed Media

Months of development and testing have finally paid dividends for Staverton based rally team, Andy Gwynne and Holly Robinson. On Saturday 12th April, the crew took part in the 'Get It Sideways' rally based at their rally school venue, Down Ampney airfield and they went away with their first overall rally win.

The weeks running up to the rally were somewhat fraught as they worked frantically to repair the damage caused to their Super1600 Saxo kit car in the crash on the Tour of Epynt.

Gwynne started the rally well and took the overall lead from Stage 1 and then continued to win all of the following stages up to stage 9 of 10. Stage 10 nearly brought disaster as one of the competition engine mountings broke and forced the crew to have to drive very slowly around the last stage. However, despite one minor incident with a pothole damaging the bottom arm on stage 5, the team had had a faultless run and had built up enough of a lead overall that meant that they could afford to lose 30 seconds.

Gwynne has lead this rally several times over the last few years but has never been awarded with a win due to mechanical problems and so this win is particularly special. He comments on the rally: “Firstly, I would like to thank Cheltenham Motor Club and all of the marshals for organising the rally which ran very well with no delays and provided really fun stages! Thanks to the service crew who kept us going through some minor bottom arm problems and thanks to Holly for keeping me on the straight and narrow (!). I am delighted that the car has started to work properly and this result has really boosted my confidence for our next rally, the Isle of Man in a few weeks.”

The team plan to make some further adjustments to the suspension on the car prior to the Manx. They will also be reviewing the rose joints which they have used in the bottom arms and the engine mountings as this rally has highlighted that they are clearly not strong enough.

GwynneSpeed Rallying also had several other cars competing on the rally, a 106 Rallye driven by Celestine Smith and co-driven by her Dad, Richard and a 306 GTi-6 driven by Roger Tillotson and co-driven by Steve Robertson. This was the first rally for both teams and they both finished well with no dramas so congratulations go out to them as well!

The next rally for the Andy and Holly is round 2 of the 2008 Richard Egger Insurance MSA National Asphalt Rally Championship, the Manx Rally on 9th and 10th May and the team are currently seeking sponsors for this rally.

For more information, please visit www.asphaltrallying.com and www.manxrally.org

CITROEN SAXO SUPER1600 RALLY CAR SPONSORS:
Race Engine Design Ltd – www.raceenginedesign.biz
PIAA UK High Performance Lighting Systems – www.piaa.co.uk