THE Spencer Sport rally team scored its third top-four MSA British Rally Championship result in as many events when Tom Cave and co-driver James Morgan brought their Ford Fiesta home in fourth place on round three, the Pirelli Carlisle Rally.

Another impressive performance by car and crew ensured that the team’s chase for this year’s British title remains very much on the cards.

For team mates Jamie Jukes of Llandysul and Dave Williams in the Spencer Sport Mitsubishi Mirage, they did well to finish seventh in the National Rally Cup section of the event. Having ended the first day fourth in the category, their stride was broken with just a stage-and-a-half to go, when a pin their car’s gear linkage was damaged and they had to stop to instigate repairs in order to get the car to the finish.

The Pirelli Carlisle Rally featured seven stages - four on Saturday and three on Sunday - in Kielder Forest, an area infamous for the distinctive nature of its gravel roads.

An excellent test during the week leading up to the event meant the team was well prepared for what lay ahead, although at the shakedown on Friday, it looked like crews were going to experience snow for the third time this season. But, with Saturday dawning dry and bright, the wintry conditions subsided and the stages - albeit damp in places - proved in excellent condition - so much so, the pace at the front of the field was fierce right from the start.

With another strong entry that included a number of World Rally Championship regulars, Cave and Morgan knew the competition was going to be tough and therefore, they were satisfied to hold fifth place after the first two stages. An excellent run through stage three elevated them to fourth and, with the top six crews all beating the stage bogie on stage four - and therefore all being accredited with the same time - meant that Cave and Morgan returned to Carlisle for the overnight halt in the same position.

Meanwhile, in the National Rally Cup, Jukes was experiencing yet another learning curve, as the event represented his and his Mitsubishi’s first visit to Kielder Forest. After a solid start and a good run through the initial four stages, he and Williams ended the first day fifth in the national category and just one place behind the Robert Blomberg and Lars Andersson in another Mitsubishi Mirage, the Swedish crew running alongside the Spencer Sport team.

The overnight rain saw Sunday’s trio of stages more slippery than the quartet of Saturday’s and, whilst this may have served to check the speed of the leading crews, organisers also added a number of chicanes in an attempt to slow them down even further in order to avoid any more bogie times being beaten. With their Michelin tyres working well in the wet conditions, Cave and Morgan emerged from the first of Sunday’s stages in third place - a position they maintained after the second, when no less than 13 crews all beat the bogie time again!

Just one stage now remained between Cave, Morgan and their second BRC podium of the season - even with Elfyn Evans just behind them and making up time following a puncture on the third stage. All was going well until just two-miles before the end, when a brief overshoot when negotiating one of the organiser’s newly positioned chicanes saw a few seconds lost, allowing Evans to edge ahead and go on to finish third behind Matthew Wilson in second and Fredrick Ahlin in first.

Even so, the team was delighted with the outcome, as Cave and Morgan had delivered yet another impressive performance against world-class competition and brought the Fiesta home with nothing more than a small amount of gravel rash. It was also satisfying for the team that the car had run perfectly throughout the event, which given the strength of the competition and the pace of the front-runners, was another tick in the box for Spencer Sport.

At the start of the second day, it looked like Jukes and Williams were also going to claim fourth place in their respective category, but when Jukes could not select any gears halfway through stage six, time was lost whilst they had to effect roadside repairs. Having made it to stage seven, their resourcefulness was put to the test again, when similar remedial action was required on two more occasions in order to make it to the finish and claim a well earned seventh place in the National Rally Cup.

Blomberg and Andersson suffered no such issues with their Mirage and were delighted to finish fourth in the national category, as they continue their British Rally Championship journey and their first full season outside of their native Sweden.

There’s now an eight-week sabbatical before the fourth round of the MSA British Rally Championship, the Dumfries-based RSAC Scottish Rally that takes place on June 25.