Dominant Edwards grabs crucial BRC win on Trackrod Rally

Reigning British Rally champion Matt Edwards recorded a dominant victory on Trackrod Rally Yorkshire, winning five of the six stages in his Volkswagen Polo GTI R5.

Edwards arrived at round four keen to net a good result following a mechanical retirement on last month’s Grampian Forest Rally.

That’s exactly what he would achieve in Yorkshire, doing the legwork on Friday night’s Dalby test under the cover of darkness.

A storming time, 17.3 seconds faster than anybody else, put him in the box seat for Saturday’s five tests and Edwards – co-driven by Darren Garrod – duly won four of them to win by 32.8s.

That was over Osian Pryce who was locked in an intense battle with Grampian winner Matthew Wilson.

Incredibly the pair tied on Friday evening – both suffering with an overshoot in the lingering dust – but Wilson began to stretch clear on Saturday morning with Pryce unhappy with his choice of softer compound rubber.

But a stage win on Langdale – by just 0.5s over Wilson and 2.1s clear of Edwards – meant Pryce was on the hunt and he duly snatched second on the final stage as Wilson overshot a junction.

The gap between the pair was just 0.8s at the end of the rally.

Ollie Mellors equalled his best ever BRC result in fourth place, albeit 1m50.2s shy of the winner.

Rhys Yates had held that position for most of the day but punctured on SS5 of six, dropping over three minutes.

Keith Cronin was another driver to struggle, battling engine gremlins in his Ford Fiesta Rally2.

Pace wise he would likely have beaten Mellors to fourth but he was docked two minutes for arriving 12 minutes late to SS5.

Pryce has taken the lead of the championship, but team-mate Edwards is just four points behind despite a DNF.

William Creighton picked up his second Junior BRC win of the year after a good battle with Ruairi Bell.

Bell however slipped to sixth at the end of the rally with a broken driveshaft, allowing Eamonn Kelly to take second and Jason Dickson to nip into third.

Stephen Petch won the BRC National class for the first time this season.

The next round of the BRC is the famed Mull Rally in two weeks time.

Photos courtesy of British Rally Championship