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Bloodhound Rally, Sunday 30th April 2006...
Newport Pagnell's Mike Winfield and Andy McGowan continued their assault on the 2006 Total Motorsport Solutions 1400 Challenge with the Nunn's Mitsubishi Bloodhound Stages Rally on Sunday. The crew finished the event in 2nd place in the 1400 challenge once again behind the experienced Martin Laverty and co-driver Andrew Roughead after 50 miles of stages around the airfield stages of RAF Swinderby in Lincolnshire. Third place went to Kelly Jones and Dave Kippax.
The day started badly for the crew, who arrived at the day's first service halt with a 37 second deficit to Laverty after only 12 miles. It was later to become apparent that such a loss of time was due to a small but crucial section of stage being missed by Laverty. Mike however tried to remain upbeat about the day's events, and without any chance of clawing such a deficit back, the team used the event as an extended test session to continue the development on the Peugeot 206 1400.
"It is hard to be anything but disappointed to be honest" said Mike at the finish. "I just can't believe that such a short cut went unrecorded. I know it was a mistake by the crew and not a deliberate cut as I have spoken with Andrew Roughead about it, and to be fair, Andy and I very nearly did the same thing at the same corner.but didn't. So why should we be penalised for going the correct route?. There was never more than 5 seconds separating us for the rest of the day, so that is fairly conclusive to me".
"However moaning over, a major plus from the rally was that we got the chance to try some new development on the car in a competitive environment, and in a straight fight we got closer and loser to the pace all day, equalling Laverty's time to the exact second through Stage 5. This now puts us in a very strong position for the Severn Valley Stages which is an event we went well on last year. The stages are the same as the ones used on Wales Rally GB world championship round, very fast, very flowing, and I cannot wait. This was my favourite rally of the 2005 season and it should be a cracker!"
The Severn Valley Stages Rally, based in Builth Wells takes place on the 3rd June, where Mike and Andy will be hoping to record their first win of the 2006 campaign.
Posted by Ben Hennessy 
31.10.06
latest news
Pre Event
Bloodhound Rally, Sunday 30th April 2006...
Bank Holiday weekend sees the GP Autosports Team heading off to Swinderby in Lincolnshire to contest the Nunns Mitsubishi Bloodhound Rally, the second round of the 2006 Total Motorsport Solutions 1400 Challenge.
Newport Pagnell based Mike Winfield and Andy McGowan will be hoping to improve on their excellent start to the 2006 campaign, which saw them narrowly miss out on the win on the Barratt's Rally of Kent in round one. The team eventually finished 2nd in the Total Motorsport Solutions 1400 challenge and also claimed 3rd place in the EuroRallye Cup championship.
Despite the Bloodhound being Mike's first single venue "sealed surface" rally, he believes that this will not be a problem as he resumes his championship battle with Northern Ireland 's Martin Laverty. "It should be an interesting rally and quite a steep learning curve for me I would imagine" said Mike. "It will certainly be different to driving the car in the forests as we have been used to, but I would not say it would be easier! Although it is a tarmac rally, the disused runways have worn to broken concrete over the years, and so it is not a true tarmac event. The tyres which we are required to run on as part of the championship are not ideally suited to the surface, and I am guessing there will be a few dodgy moments out there. Having said that, it is the same for everybody so we just have to get on with it. I have been driving on this type of surface week in week out for the past 4 years instructing at rally schools, so I cannot really see a problem"
"All in all I think it will be a very good event, and I hope to be able to come away with the win and some valuable points. We could really do with not dropping any more points to Martin Laverty, otherwise we are making a very hard job for ourselves later in the year".
The rally will start at 08.30 on Sunday morning at ex-RAF Swinderby, located half way between Newark and Lincoln. The action takes place at the same venue all day, with multiple stages running round grounds and disused runways the ex-RAF base.
Visit the event website at http://website.lineone.net/~lincolnmotorsport for further information and spectator instructions.
Posted by Ben Hennessy 31.10.06
