Azimghur Stages

Several members of Griffin Motor Club travelled to the Bath Motor Club organised Azimghur Stages Rally at Colerne Airfield on Saturday 17th July. The venue uses both the runways and perimeter tracks of the airfield giving a mixture of very fast sections and much tighter slower ones. Being close to the M4 it is easily accessible to South Wales clubs. Griffin Motor Club members were both competing and marshalling on the event. Chris Short from Gelli was navigating for Alex Taylor in a Subaru Imprezza at car 17.
Andrew Gregory & Huw Davies	Next up from Griffin at car 72 was Andrew Gregory from Tonypandy and Huw Davies from Cwmparc. Their 1300cc Micra would be no match for the big boys but they were hoping for a good class result and to improve their position in the 1300 class of the Welsh Association of Motor Clubs Tarmac Championship. At 79 was Richard Bebb from Tonpentre who had Gareth Short navigating for him in their Mark2 Ford Escort competing in the Road Rally class. Gareth, son of Chris, was taking part in his first rally so on such a quick venue it was a bit of a baptism of fire.Although dad was there to give advice if needed. John Thomas, Trealaw, and Alan Jones of Pentre were a little disappointed to be so far back at 82.
Their Mitsubishi Evo 4 was amongst a group of much slower cars. But they hoped the long fast straights would make overtaking easier when catching slower cars and this did turn out to be the case. The final Griffin members out were Rowland Lawrewnce and Aron at 98 in the front wheel drive Escort. The fine hot weather was a mixed blessing. Everyone was relieved that it wasn't wet, but the hot sun didn't suit everyone. John and Alan struggled on the first two stages as their tyres were too soft for the conditions and overheated, causing the car to understeer. A change of rubber solved the problem and they had a much better run over the renaming stages. They still managed a high speed spin on the 6th stage when John got a little ambitious going into a fast hairpin.	John Thomas & Alan Jones
Andrew and Huw also had tyre problems on the first stage, but this time it was a puncture. They had to stop and change it in the stage which dropped them well down the field. They battled on climbing places with each stage. Keeping the championship in mind they didn't try for any heroics, following their retirement from the Enville Stages in Anglesy when they hit a tyre marking the route damaging the suspension.
The rest didn't fair so well. Chris retired when the clutch failed on Stage 5. Richard and Gareth didn't get that far when the engine let them down on stage 3. Rowland and Aron got as far as stage 6 but then the throttle linkage gave up and couldn't repair it to keep going. The final drama came the 8th and last stage of the rally. One of the leading cars caught fire. The delay caused the stage to be cancelled sot he final positions for the two remaining Griffin crews was John Thomas/Alan Jones 24th Overall and Andrew Gregory/Huw Davies 62nd Overall 11th in class (This item was used in an article which appeared in the Rhondda Leader)