The Kent Rally Crew of Stefan Davis and co-driver John Bond contested in their local event this weekend “The Rally of Kent”. The event was based in the usually peaceful Kent forests of Bedgebury, Hempsted and Kingswood. The car in its new fluorescent orange livery, tackled the stages to explore the limits and generally get a feel for how the car will react on the next Rally Scholarship round, the British Rally Championship National Rally, “The Rally of Wales”.

We were also aiming to attract some local attention to our rallying sponsorship campaign before it all comes to a premature end! We are currently lying in 8^th place out of 20 after the first Scholarship round and are confident this is only going to improve.

Stage 1 and the rally got off to a good start, with a run through the tranquil forest of Kingswood, near Charing. We attacked from the off, setting a good time and the changes to the suspension made pre-rally had surprisingly transformed the car’s handling. We had a bit of a moment with the back end 2 metres in the air at 70 mph over one of the bumps, which made an interesting view from the cockpit. I kept the power nailed and escaped without a problem! On the second run through Kingswood, we were pushing even harder and set a good time this time without any little incidents.

Stage 3 and 4 involved runs through Hempstead Forest. Again we pushed hard and feeling more and more comfortable with the car, we set a fast time on Stage 3 and another big push resulted in taking 6 seconds off our previous run. To our amazement, we were only 21 seconds off the eventual rally winner Will Nicholls in his Subaru World Rally Car!

Stage 5 – Bedgebury 1 – The first run through the Bedgebury forest and we kept 100% commitment through this stage, hopefully to the delight of the marshals and spectators. Through Stage 6, the second run through Bedgebury, we attacked once again and all was going well until we were set a reaction test at the split junction. Another competing crew were illegally reversing down the stage after going the wrong way. Quick reactions from Stefan avoided a very near big accident much to the delight of the observing spectators, receiving a big round of applause!

It was then back to Kingswood forest for Stages 7 and 8, known as Oathill 1 & 2, and we continued the push and so doing, set 31^st quickest time out of the 81 car strong field even with a bit of a moment over a big bump. Oathill 2 was back through Kingswood on a different route. Three corners in and absolute commitment far beyond the car, we had a minor excursion when we just ran out of grip and road drifting sideways off the road. The car went up onto two wheels about 6 feet into the air before landing back on the floor, much to the delight of local camera man Barry Ambrose. I quickly selected 1^st gear as the wheels barely touched the ground and managed not to lose a great deal of time. We kept it sensible for the next few corners but were back on the pace for the dramatic jump into a tricky downhill section, which was taken perfectly.

Stage 9 & 10 – Chittenden 1 & 2 - We continued to push through the stages and indeed the pace compared to the field, continued to improve, setting 24^th quickest then 26^th quickest through the re-run stage.

Stage 11 – Pinetum – the penultimate run through Bedgebury Forest and the testing twisty muddy section. We kept calm and calculated through the tight section and flowed through the fast stuff using every inch of the road!

Stage 12 – Louisa Lodge - The final stage and the longest of the day through the Bedgebury Forest. We were extremely committed through the tree lined tracks. Our continued improvement and confidence showed on the timecard, as we set 22^nd fastest time through the stage, which was no easy feat in this strong national field! We finally finished 25^th overall in the 81 car field, with which we were thrilled. Our efforts did not go un-noticed and we were picked out by local BBC news film crew for a rally report on BBC South East Today, hopefully doing our chances of picking up extra sponsorship no harm!

We are looking forward to the next Scholarship round after such a positive rally.