and an amazing 12th Overall in the Rally of Kent
Stefan Davis contested the first round of the Peugeot 205 Scholarship this weekend with new co-driver Pat Cooper. Stefan made the long 400 mile drive to snowy Cumbria determined to make the most from his time spent with current British Rally Champion Mark Higgins and his new position as driver of Professional Rally Team, AB Motorsport.
The pair got off to a good start, though Stefan felt it was way off the pace inside the car. The 4 leading crews set times only 1 second apart on Stage 3 and Stefan's confidence in the new car was beginning to grow. The crew got faster throughout the day until the rally was cut short by mechanical failure on Stage 7. The clutch give up the ghost just half a mile from the end of Stage 7 and despite all their efforts they could not get the car to go any further, much to despair of the new pairing. They were in 2nd position in the Scholarship at the time and looking forward to taking the points and building their alliance for the following rounds.
After the finish of the rally Kent Crew Stefan and made the long haul back to Kent to contest on his local event, the Rally of Kent. Stefan paired up with old co-driver and dedicated mechanic John Bond for the local event. John had been out of the co-driving seat for over a year so it was going to take a little while to get back into the swing of things. The team got off to a steady start and picked up the pace as the day went on.
The crew had contested the Rally of Kent twice before so knew the stages quite well and decided to push on. Delighting the local spectators with his committed driving Stefan was setting some amazing times. The Kent Crew were only 10 seconds off the winning car of Will Nicholls on Stage 6. The crew were an amazing 2.25 seconds per mile off the £200,000+ Subaru World Rally Car through the Bedgebury Forest!
"Its amazing how fast he his now, only been a year. I was struggling to keep up some of the time and the scenery was going past way too fast and close at times" Said Co-driver John Bond. The crew got faster and faster as the day went on and set 10th fastest time on the last stage and finished 12th Overall as well as picking up a trophy for 2nd in Class. An impressive performance considering they only had a little 150BHP Peugeot 205 and they embarrassed many a better machine finishing faster than Mitsubishi Evolutions and Subaru's. Stefan is looking forward to the next Scholarship round which is also Round 1 of the British Rally Championship, the Pirelli Rally based in Carlisle.
