MID Wales was the destination last weekend for Slimbridge rally man Dan Moss and co-driver Sam Allen for round four of the BTRDA Championship which was the Plains Rally and was based in Welshpool, Powys.

The event runs stages used on Great Britain’s round of the World Rally Championship and is always a favourite with the competing crews.

Moss and Allen were keen to get their season back on track after the setback of the last round.

Moss said: “After a disappointing rally and non-finish at the Somerset stages, we had a new clutch fitted to the car and are really looking forward to the fantastic stages the Plains Rally offers, which uses stages like Dyfi and Gartheiniog as used on Wales Rally GB last year.”

The duo were seeded 34th in a super strong field of top-class rally cars and, because of that, it was always going to be a tough rally for them.

The first test of the day was an 8.50 mile stage which ran through Gartheiniog which the crew completed in nine minutes 23 seconds and was followed by a run through Dyfi East and West stages in surprisingly dusty conditions that made it look more like the Acropolis rally in Greece than somewhere in Britain.

Moss finished the stage to say he was pleased with the pace early on considering it was his first time out in the Mitsubishi Evo on a dry surface.

The afternoon stages were a repeat run of the morning stages and saw the local duo make steady progress up the rankings.

By the time, they got to stage six of the competition, which was a repeat run of Dyfi West, Moss and Allen reported that their Pirelli tyres, that had worked so well in the morning session, had started to succumb to the temperature of a warm day and were running too hot on the dry, dusty gravel. With no more service breaks to be made for the Gloucestershire driver and co-driver and just the use of soft tyres for the car, making the final stage of the rally slippery, Moss was pleased to get the car home for another finish in the Championship.

When the crew finally got back to the service area they had brought the Mitsubishi Evo home in 26th position overall and in fifth place in their NR4 class.

That was a result Moss and Allen were more than happy with after running against such a strong field of competitors.

The rally was won by Tom Cave and James Morgan in their Ford Fiesta R5.