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Stephen Petch Junior was left blaming himself for a pair of time consuming spins and a brief off road excursion.
The County Durham driver entered the final stage of last weekends Severn Valley Rally 17 seconds off fourth position in the Evo Challenge. A storming drive saw him go 16.5 seconds quicker, loosing out by a mere half a second at the end of a long and dusty day.
The day began with a wild spin in the opening stage, causing Stephen to loose his rhythm a bit. A fifth fastest time amongst the Evo’s on Stage 2 showed that the he was back on the pace again. A really hard push through Radnor, the longest stage of the rally, saw young ‘Petchie’ hustle the SG Petch Motorsport run Evo IX around the 17 mile stage quicker than all of the Evo’s bar championship leader Phillip Morrow. This time saw Stephen vault into fifth in class, with Nik Elsmore in his sights.
Despite taking more time out of Elsmore on the next stage Stephen undid all of his hard work with an extravagant spin on Stage 5. This meant that, after going third quickest through the penultimate stage, Stephen was still nearly 17 seconds down on his fellow Evo IX pilot. Stephen, co-driven as always by Michael Wilkinson, flew through the 12 miles of Crychan Main to put in a brilliant time, but he fell short of his target by a mere half a second.
A frustrated but optimistic Stephen said: “I am pretty annoyed with myself for those two silly spins. You needed to be neat and tidy on this rally because, if you get off line, it is so slippery. It was still a great day and the car ran brilliantly, bring on the Swansea Bay now.”
As the series takes a bit of a summer break Stephen finds himself lying fourth in the standings and tussling with Philip Morrow for the Junior title so, with four rounds to go, it is still very much all to play for.
Next up is the South Wales based Swansea Bay Rally at the end of July.