Rally aces James Wozencroft and Chris Ridge made the long trip across the water to County Antrim in Northern Ireland to contest the 4th round of the Tesco 99 Octane British Rally Championship.
Going into the Armagh based rally the duo were lying 3rd overall in the championship just 1 point behind 3 times British Rally Champion, Mark Higgins. After a class winning performance on the same event in 2007 the Competition Car Insurance backed crew were in a highly confident mood going into the 3rd tarmac round of the season. With 2 incredible near podium results on the previous sealed surface rally’s James and Chris looked to go 1 better on their favourite event of the season.
The northern Irish stages are traditionally very fast with unforgiving bumps and jumps around every corner. The recent severe flooding around the Armagh region would make the already treacherous stages even more demanding by the addition of loose gravel and deep mud.
The Subaru Impreza drivers launched into the 1st stage recording a time inside the top 6 of British Rally Championship, the pairing were more than happy with this time especially as they felt there was more speed still to come. However stage 2 would see their world turned up side down, literally. After a heavy landing over a big jump the rallying machine plunged into an uncontrollable roll and subsequently into retirement.
“We were in 5th gear at about 110mph as we approached a series of small crests in the road. Over the first brow the car very unexpectedly launched into the air and landed heavily on the nose. This threw us into a bank on the right side of the road and started the car rolling.” James told us. The car rolled approximately 6 times before coming to rest on its roof. The rally organisers had no other option but to stop the stage and get immediate medical assistance to the crew.
With such heavy impacts on the car the doctors on hand felt it was necessary as precaution to send the drivers to a near by hospital for x-rays and check ups, but the lads were later released with no serious injuries.
Due to this unfortunate accident the crew are now lying 5th in the British Championship but hope to be back in action on the next rally, the international rally of Yorkshire to get their championship title back on track.