Report
Penalties and overall positions are available here. In the penalty charts, locations where no crews incurred penalties are not shown.
Penalties up to the petrol halt are shown here: 2019 Valentine First Half Penalties
Penalties for the second half of the event are listed here: 2019 Valentine Second Half Penalties
Overall finishing positions are available here: 2019 Valentine Overall Positions
The award winners are listed here: 2019 Valentine Award Winners
Many thanks to Rhian Owen Jones and Duncan Littler for the photos in the gallery. Unfortunately, the foggy conditions made it very difficult out on the route and the quality is not what Duncan would normally hope for.
Many thanks to Will Hughes, Joint Clerk of the Course, for writing the following excellent report on the event.
The Valentine Road Rally is an event that both Deio and I have enjoyed for the last few years, providing us with our first glimpses of night rally success. No longer being eligible to enter, we decided to take on the duties of Clerks of the Course for 2019, with the aim of providing new-comers with an enjoyable event, and an easy format on some of our favourite Anglesey roads. Being our first year running the rally, we made sure to have an experienced team supporting us, without whom we couldn’t have pulled the event off!!
For the route, we decided to stick with a tried and tested version. We did this by reversing the 2018 route, adding in a few changes in order to have all Main Controls located at Cartio Môn.
Again, this year, the event was opened to Novice and Beginners with Experts being placed on a reserve list. We received a strong entry of over 50 crews, but we did have some withdrawals prior to the closing date. On the night, we had a full entry of 35 Novices and 5 Beginners starting the event; despite having a few people criticising the class structure!
On rally day, everything was in place. Deio and I set off along the route, in lovely sunshine, to make our final checks and mark out all the controls. As the day want on, the weather turned damp and by the time all competitors were plotting, a thick fog had covered the entire route.
I set off along the route from SS2S to TC2A and realised the night would be a tougher night for all competitors. They would need good steady pace and have confidence in their navigator for a good result. As I stood at TC2A with Tecs and Gwyneth, my prediction of 15 seconds being dropped quickly went out of the window! All the top 10 were dropping about 60 seconds! With the confidence we had a winner that night, I left their control unaware that Car 14 Ceiron Owen and Irfon Hughes would arrive shortly after, having only dropped 26 seconds, Then, Deio Glyn Jones and Kieran Williams also in a 206 GTI would only drop 23 seconds.
The next dropper would be from SS3S to TC3A from Pentre Berw towards Brynsiencyn. The only crew to clear this section would be Car 2, Jamie Jones and Gavin Rees; no surprise as this is part of his daily commute. SS3 then continued from Dwyran towards Llangaffo, followed by a long non-competitive section to Bodorgan Station for SS4S, which was the start of another foggy selective finishing near Gwalchmai.
It was then back to MC2 at Cartio Môn where competitors would have an opportunity to have a drink and a chat whilst recovering any time lost before setting off on the short second half. The results at MC2 would show Car 2 of Jamie Jones & Gavin Rees to have a 34 second lead over Ceiron Owen and Irfon Hughes in Car 14. The top five were completed by Car 9 Jones/Roberts in 3rd, Car 8 Lindley/Hughes in 4th and last year’s Valentine Trophy winner Car 5 Gadd/Parry in 5th Place.
The top seed father and daughter crew of Berwyn & Mari Hâf Evans would have also been in contention for the overall win, but unfortunately had picked up a fail putting them out of the challenge - they were showing a competitive pace in these challenging conditions and are a crew to watch out for on future road and stage rallies with a constantly improving pace with each event.
In the Beginner Class the challenge for the Valentine Trophy had become wide open following the retirement prior to TC2A of firm favourites for the class win, Ifan and Thomas Devine. At MC2, Danny Thomas and Tom Lindstrom had a lead of almost two minutes over Ben King and Paul Clark.
It was then on to SS5. A short selective located at the back of Bryngwran heading towards Trefor, where all but four of the 34 remaining competitors would drop time.
SS6 was split into two sections. The first part was a relatively wide, open road to TC6A. From there onwards to SS6F, there were many more twists, plus one slightly rough piece of road, which made for a very enjoyable section. Unfortunately, an incident along the selective blocked the road for half the field resulting in all the penalties for this section being deleted.
The final selective of the night was SS7, a two-and-a-half mile selective full of twists and turns, stone walls, and even a caution “Water Splash! Sea Ahead!” Luckily the tide was low when the cars passed. With only a short distance to go, Car 2 seemed to have the win in the bag, but along this fog-filled last selective, they were no match for the pace and commitment of Car 14 who managed to turn their 34 seconds deficit into a 6 seconds lead, by only dropping 27 seconds, compared to Car 2’s 1 minute 7 seconds.
As a result of their impressive performance on the final selective, the event was won by Car 14, Ceiron Owen and Irfon Hughes, in the Peugeot 206 GTI. They were presented with the Mick Lindley Memorial Shield. The Valentine Trophy was won by Danny Thomas and Tom Lindstrom. They had lost some time to their rivals in the second half, but successfully maintained a lead of over a minute.
Congratulations to all competitors who completed the event in such challenging fog. It was a pleasure to organise this event and great to see so many competitors taking their first steps towards competing in rallies, as well as driving in a sensible manner.
A huge thanks to Lee Barnes for sponsoring the event once again, Cartio Môn for the Start & Finish venue, Kingsland Garage for Scrutineering and Dion Bee at Llechi Llan for designing and manufacturing the awards. Also, thanks to all our organising team for all their support and thanks to everyone who helped mentor us in to the role. The biggest thanks of all goes to our army of marshals who enabled us to fill every control - we even have some spare to replace RCs with PCs!
The event was a learning curve for Deio and I. We look forward to progressing from our first attempt of running the event by continuing to expand our knowledge and improve the event every year.
Will Hughes, Joint Clerk Of Course, Valentine Rally 2019.
Latest Information
Final Instructions to competitors have been circulated by email and are also available here: Valentine Rally 2019 Final Instructions
A plan showing the location of the Noise Test and Scrutineering venues is available here: Valentine Rally 2019 Noise Test Plan
The provisional seeded list of entries is available here: 2019 Valentine Rally Provisional Entry List
Information -
This is our grass roots event planned as an introduction to road rallies, keeping the route, controls, plotting and timing as simple as possible. For Clerks of the Course Deio Hughes and Will Hughes this is the first time they have taken on the role on a road rally and they are supported by the event’s previous Clerk of the Course, Paul Morris.
We are extremely pleased to have Barnes Auto Engineering associated with the event once again and are very grateful to Lee Barnes for his enthusiastic support.
Whilst the event is open to all, priority is given to Novice and Beginner crews and those entering in the Expert class will initially be placed on a reserve list and will be allocated places, if available, on a ‘first paid’ basis after the closing date for entries.
The route over the lanes of Ordnance Survey Map 114 (Anglesey) is approximately 70 miles and 98% tarmac, but sump-guards are recommended for that unexpected rock in the road. Tyre choice is up to individuals but, as this event is in Wales, there is a requirement to only use E-marked tyres.
To ensure the smooth running of this event all competitors MUST supply a marshal.
The start and finish will be at Cartio Môn Go Kart Track, Bodedern with srutineering at Kingsland Garage Holyhead.
Competitors should please read the Supplementary Regulations before submitting an entry.
CLASSES - Prospective competitors should take special note of the definitions of the classes in Supplementary Regulation 7 as both driver and navigator are required to declare their class before the entry form can be submitted.
Where a crew is made up of persons from different classes, they must enter the higher-ranking class. For example: A driver who has won a rally can take part with a navigator from any class other than Expert but must enter the Expert class. Crews consisting of two Experts cannot enter the event.
INSURANCE -Drivers wishing to use the Jelf Insurance Scheme should ensure that they comply with the requirements listed in Supplementary Regulation 18, especially if you are under 20 years of age. If necessary, you should complete a Driver Declaration form to apply for a Letter of Acceptance.
UNDER 18 - A marshal or competitor who is under 18 years of age must have a parent, guardian or guarantor present at signing-on to sign consent. If a parent, guardian or guarantor is not present, an authorised representative must produce a complete Motorsport UK Parental Consent Authorisation form in order to sign on behalf of the parent, guardian or guarantor. The appropriate form is available here: Parental Consent Authorisation form.
CLUB MEMBERSHIP - Competitors must be paid-up members of C&A Motor Club to compete on this event. Membership may be applied for at signing-on and application forms can be found here: Become A Member.
Entries
As all communication will be made by email to the nominated driver or navigator on the entry form, please ensure your e-mail address is accurate and very clear.
Supplementary Regulations are available here: 2019 Valentine Regulations
Entries should be made using the online form and methods of payment are listed Supplementary Regulation 8. You have the option to pay by PayPal or Credit Card on completion of the form. The entry form is available here: 2019 Valentine Entry Form
A list of unseeded paid-up entries is available here: 2019 Valentine Rally Unseeded List
