Marty McCormack and Phil Clarke are the inaugural West Wales Rally Spares R.A.C. Rally Championship victors after another mighty performance on the Red Kite Historic Stages (Sunday 8 September).The Escort Mk2 crew led from the start to take their fourth straight victory and seal the 2013 championship after a superb day of rallying on classic Welsh stages. While Nick Elliott and Dave Price retired after an off, Jason Pritchard and Dale Furniss turned in another fine performance to lead the challenge of McCormack and take maximum points in the FIA Appendix K category.McCormack made his intentions clear on the opening stage in Crychan by going five seconds faster than Pritchard as Elliott dropped 10s with too soft a tyre compound. McCormack pressed home his advantage in the following stage just across the road in Cefn and then took his lead out to half a minute after the fast and flowing Caio stage.“We were straight on it this morning: there are no lie-ins with this championship,” said McCormack. “We kept pushing because we knew Nick and Jason would be coming hard at us.” However, Elliott, now getting into the groove, was out on the second run through Crychan, when the car slid off the road. There was very little damage, but their rally was over. After a dry morning with some dust starting to kick up, heavy rain showers arrived as crews completed the second lap of stages, but the dramatically different grip levels did not unsettle McCormack, who kept up his pace to head Pritchard back to Llandovery by 42s for a fine victory.“We were a bit slow on the first run through Caio,” admitted Pritchard, after losing 18s in eight miles. Otherwise, Pritchard kept well in touch with McCormack despite nursing a sore hand after a recent workshop accident. “I’m pleased to be so close in our first season in historics,” said Pritchard after another impressive performance.A strong and rapid rally from Matthew Robinson/Nigel Hutchinson put them up to third overall from Kevin Davies/Dale Bowen. “It was slippery on the first couple of stages, but we’ve had a good day,” reported Robinson. Davies, on only his third rally of the year, was slowed in the morning by an ailing clutch which needed pumping, but upped his pace once it was fixed. “I was pleased with our pace in the afternoon,” he said after strong runs in Cefn and Caio.Out on the opening stage with gearbox failure went the Escort Mk2 of Terry Brown/Tomos Whittle and clutch dramas put Matt Edwards/Andrew Murphy out of contention. Probably the best performance of the rally came from Ben Mellors and Alex Lee, who pushed their Pinto-powered Escort Mk2 into a class-winning sixth overall, just eight seconds behind the BDG version of Tim Pearcey/Jamie Edwards. An on-going gearbox problem hindered Pearcey on his first rally for three months, but Mellors had a clear run to chalk up another fine result. Packing out a quality top 10 were a trio of Escorts, all tied on time: Warren Philliskirk/Paul Wakely, Will Nicholls/Nick Broom and James Potter/Bob Duck ended the day level, with Philliskirk setting the better time on the opening stage from Nicholls and Potter. The three cars were never more eight seconds apart on any one stage and were covered by just two seconds on the first run through the 8.5-mile Caio stage.With another storming performance, the BMW 2002 of Terry Cree and Richard Shores was the class of category 2, finishing half a minute clear of the Escort Mk1 of David Kirby/Chris Rixon as Dick Slaughter and Geoff Dearing took third. “Excellent stages,” reported Cree. “The car has been very good. The second run through Caio was very slippery in the rain and we were half a minute slower.”Nick Jarvis and Paul Spooner had a good rally to take class C5 from Ian Rix/Rob Cook, while Vince Bristow and Elgan Davies topped class C2 after running first on the road with a freshly rebuilt engine. Bristow was let down on a service crew, so drove the van and trailer from Sussex and fettled the car himself during the rally to make the win very well deserved. “I’m grateful to all the people who helped in the service area,” he said after finishing clear of the similar Escort Mk1 of Robin Shuttleworth/Ron Roughead.Away from the Escort Mk2s in category 3, class D2 went to the Hillman Avenger of Graham Thatcher and Robert James. “We had understeer for the first two stages and lost a minute on the last stage with a puncture,” reported Thatcher.In Category 1, the Singer Chamois of Chris and Jo Tooze dropped a lot of time in the opening stage when it stopped with a chronic misfire and though they completed the stages, they were OTL. Meanwhile, a fuel problem sidelined the Alfa Romeo of John Everard/Mark Sharpley on the final stage so maximum category points went to the Saab 96 of Stephen Higgins and Don Bramfoot. “It’s been a good day with excellent stages,” said Higgins before dashing to Liverpool for the ferry back to the Isle of Man.In series 7, for the open category cars, Dylan Davies and Llion Williams came out on top in their Ford Escort Mk1 despite some major issues with tyre wear. However, they had gone into the final Caio stage trailing the Escort Mk2 of Ben Llewellin/Chris Davies by seven seconds. Sadly, Llewellin lost a wheel in Caio and his rally was over after another highly impressive performance.The Red Kite Stages, organised by Amman and DMC, had been another superb event for the R.A.C. Rally Championship, with drivers giving the event a massive vote of approval. Superb stages, slick organisation and a friendly welcome all added together to make this a great rally. Full results are available at www.amcrallyresults.co.ukThe WWRS R.A.C. Championship concludes with round six, the Trackrod Historic Cup on 28/29 September.