Newcastle Emlyn rally driver Sebastian Ling continued his successful career with a well judged Group N Victory on the recently held SGC Printing Harry Flatters Rally on the Epynt Ranges.

The rally, organised by the Brecon Motor Club, was only intended to be a test session for Sebastian and his Crymych based co-driver Aled Rees, but such was their pace that they led the Group N category from the first stage and continued to win every successive stage in their class.

They won the Group N category by over 3 minutes and also finished 4th overall in the main rally, only beaten by three World Rally Cars.

"The rally proved more difficult than I expected," said Sebastian. "The recognisance runs through the stages on Saturday morning were done in torrential rain and it was very difficult to make accurate pace notes, but come the first stage in the afternoon, the road was bone dry making it very interesting as the pace and speed was much higher than we expected, we managed to settle into a good rhythm early on and kept it at that level for the two day rally."

The only changes needed to the PLE Motorsport run Mitsubishi Evo 9 throughout the rally was to stiffen the suspension of the car during the Sunday morning loop.

"We felt that on some of the very fast crest and jumps that are synonymous with Epynt were making the car nervous on landings and it was giving us some very exciting moments," said Aled. "So the decision was made to stiffen the rear of the car, which dramatically changed the handling, and the stage times improved as a result."

While the Kumho Tyre backed PLE Motorsport team will now be busy over the next couple of weeks re-preparing the car for their continued assault on the French Rally Championship- Le Touquet Rally held between October 2 and 5 in Northern France, Sebastian and Aled will be busy studying the in-car DVD footage from the Harry Flatters Rally to see where they can gain the extra seconds needed for the challenge ahead.