DAVID STOKES and co-driver Guy Weaver had a day of mixed fortunes on last weekends Severn Valley Historic Rally, latest round of the Dunlop/Gambia Historic and Dennis Motorsport Welsh Historic Series, writes Paul Willetts.

Five Stages in the famous Forests of Halfway, Crychan, Radnor and Cefn made up the 45 miles of action. The Draycott Bakeries backed Escort RS1600 was re-fettled after its Bulldog Rally accident, but they got off to a bad start, catching the dust of Darren Moon, who had rolled earlier in the Stage and was limping out, which cost them 20 seconds. They were also incurring steering problems which continued all day. The problem was tried to be rectified at Service.

So Stokes set off for the final test, a 16-mile Stage in Radnor Forest determined to pull up the leaderboard, which he did, moving from seventh to third overall and second in class at the end.

Stokes’ next outing is this coming weekend at the Chatsworth Rally Show, where he will be the star attraction entertaining huge crowds.