THIS weekend's Rally North Wales sees local crews tackle the BTRDA & Pirelli Welsh National championship opener.

The Welshpool-based event offers 44 miles of some of Wales’ best stages, with two loops of three tests in Aberhirnant and Dyfnant Forest and has attracted a superb 125-car entry.

A trio of Abergavenny-based drivers and co-drivers are entered – Rob Morris and Paul Spooner in the Citroën C3, Damian Cole with Ian Allsop calling the notes in the beautiful Get Connected.Com Escort RS1800 – looking to do a full Welsh championship series – and Dave Hopkins with new co-driver Siobhan Pugh in the Hopgrove Construction Mk1 Escort.

The Mini GT of Ross-on-Wye veterans Eric Davis and Russ Joseph in the Dennis Motorsport Mini is also entered, alongside the Forest of Dean’s Bob Morgan with Adrian Williams in the Winner Garage Skoda, while Geoff Phelps will have Lucy Wilding calling the notes in the Cherry Rock Farm Escort RS1800 in the absence of Colin Jenkins.

Luke Watts will start his BTRDA campaign in the Ian Watts & Son MG ZR with Matt Rogers back in the hot seat, and Monmouth’s Cliffy Simmons teams up with Devonian Shaun Bolt in his historic spec Escort RS1800 for the first time.

Meanwhile, Phillip Allen and Forest co-driver Craig Drew started their build up to the opening round of the European Rally championship with seventh on last weekend’s Rallye la Nucia, the opening round of the Spanish Super Championship, in the new Auto Assist & Glenn Allen Accident Repair Centre Toyota Yaris Rally 2 run by SRT.

The shakedown stage was eventful, when they suffered wheel hub failure, but they then got off to an excellent start with the fastest stage 2 time to hold fourth.

They dropped back to hold seventh overnight, before Saturday’s opening loop saw them in ninth after a poor tyre choice and over 10km with a misting windscreen, before climbing back to seventh on the final loop.