Multiple British National Rally Champion Marcus Dodd heads west along the M4 to Swansea on July 21st with one aim in mind. The Poole based driver will be targeting maximum MSA National Gravel Championship points on the Swansea Bay National Rally.
After taking a maximum points haul on the recent Severn Valley National Rally, Marcus will look to repeat that feat onboard his Flitewise.com, Sunseeker Powerboats, Pirelli Tyres and Sunoco Fuels backed Hyundai Accent WRC4. The HPM Motorsport run car will be gunning for glory in the forests of the Neath Valley where Marcus took the slenderest of victories a year ago together with Andrew Bargery.
Dodd and his Hove based co-driver fended off a stiff challenge from flying Norwegian sensation Andreas Mikkelsen to win the dusty event by just three seconds. A repeat of that result would do Dodd nicely in 2007 on stages he knows well. Dodd’s main task is to score maximum points and keep main title rival Steve Perez behind him. The VK backed man has been a consistent finisher throughout the year and Marcus knows that he needs to beat off the challenge of the Chesterfield driver to keep his title hopes going.
The Swansea Bay National Rally uses the well known forests of the Neath Valley including legendary stages such as Resolven and Rheola which incorporates the now famous ‘Walters Arena’. With a new rally base at the SA1 development in Swansea, Marcus will lead the field away knowing that the dust that can play a crucial part in deciding the outcome of the event is unlikely to be a major problem this year. Rally organisers have the option to run the crews with a two minute gap therefore minimising the advantage of running first on the road. For Dodd, this is a good and bad thing:
“It is fair for everyone, but running first on the road on a dusty event is a bonus if the crews behind do not get a two minute gap. If that rule is applied, then we’ll be sweeping a clean line of gravel for everyone so if anything being first on the road may be a disadvantage for us. The main goal for the weekend is score maximum championship points and that is all I will be concentrating on. We know that we have a very strong package and our win on the Red Dragon Rally back in May was very useful testing as it used a very similar route. Hopefully that will benefit us as I’m sure that Steve (Perez) and Roger (Duckworth) will both be attacking hard so there will be little time for us to sit back and watch how things go. We’ll need to be pushing from the start on this event.”
Dodd will once again be joined on the event by his father Harry. Dodd senior will be partnered by the experience Manxman Richard Skinner and the pair will be looking to enjoy the classic and challenging South Wales stages when the event gets underway on Saturday morning.
