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Allingham’s Neath to Change TackAfter suffering a bitterly disappointing non finish on July’s Nicky Grist Stages Riverside Property Services backed crew Alex Allingham and Chris Williams have had to take stock of their season. The Kumho Tyres backed Subaru Impreza N10 team suffered a balljoint failure on the penultimate stage of the event whilst on course to take a comfortable Production class victory and on the brink of winning a prize in the region of £9000 that included free entries to the entire of next season’s BTRDA Rally Championship marking Allingham’s first non-finish incredibly in over three years of rallying.Barrow-in-Furness based co-driver Williams, explains, ‘At the start of the year we decided to make a plan that would mean we would be in the best possible position to challenge for both the BTRDA and Welsh Production Cups like last season, however we only ever elected to start 6 rounds of the BTRDA Championship. The championship regulations state that a competitors best 6 scores from their first 8 event starts count. As it is even if we finished all the other rounds we’d only have 5 scores. Having looked at the points tables we’ve now decided to concentrate solely on the MSA Welsh Championship for the remainder of the season, and when looking at the points tables, with three strong performances we could still win the title outright.’

Allingham & Williams prior to their disappointment retirement on July’s Nicky Grist Stages (Chicane Media/James Ward)

The Richard Allingham Cars backed crew’s change in plans now means they will abandon their BTRDA Production Cup campaign and contest this weekend’s Zutec Technologies Neath Valley Stages instead of their originally planned outing on September’s Trackrod Forest Stages and Allingham and Williams will be pushing hard to take overall event honours when Saturday morning comes around.Coppermines & Lakes Cottages backed driver Allingham commented, ‘The entire team was completely devastated to retire from the Nicky Grist Stages especially when the retirement was through no one’s fault and given it was our first in over 3 years. It makes it even harder given the pace we were showing. We were

matching times with some of the World Rally Cars and the feeling I had in the car was as good as I’ve ever felt. We’ll be looking to avenge the retirement this weekend and keep the pace we’ve shown this coming weekend and we will be trying as hard as we can to take the overall win. There are a number of more powerful World Rally Cars entered, and Luke Francis is always tough to beat, but we’ll give as good as we can, that’s for sure.’

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The Juice Motorsport backed crew have been seeded at Car X and will lead away the Group N contenders for the 45 mile event that takes in some of the stages used on past Wales Rally GB’s above the edges of the Neath Valley in South Wales such as Margam Park and Rheola. Crews will leave the event base in Resolven from 09.00am on Saturday 9th August before returning there for the finish from 15:30pm.Keep up to date with Allingham and Williams’ progress with live results on www.neathvalleystages.co.uk or ‘Like’ their Facebook page ‘Alex Allingham Rallying’ or following them on Twitter: @alexallingham or @cwrallying. You can also keep up with the latest news and images on Allingham’s website: www.alexallingham.co.uk

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