The Port Talbot MC organised Pro-Art Signs Red Dragon Rally may have lacked it’s former BTRDA championship status, but on Saturday 5 April it was adjudged a success by its peers, providing a day of close, compact and competitive rallying in the Vale of Neath.

Rally winners – and pre-event favourites - were Hugh Hunter and Andy Marchbank in their Ford Focus WRC, half a minute clear of Damian Cole/Den Golding in their Get Connected Hyundai Accent WRC.

But the hero of the rally was surely young Welsh driver Stuart Jones. He and co-driver Andy Bull out testing the new MG S2000 Sport, and with three fastest times, two seconds and a third would have been rally winners had they not deliberately failed to check in to the final control.

Hunter and Marchbank (above) were worthy winners though, Jones more than happy to have got in valuable test miles in the MG, honing set ups for both wet and dry stages such were the conditions on the rally.

At the finish Hunter praised the organisers – the rally newly overseen by PTMC co-driver Dylan Jenkins and veteran ANCRO Clerk of the Course Alan Stoneman – expressing surprise that the event had been dropped as a BTRDA round, and a conviction that it should be re-instated, and, with series observers present on the rally and many other competitors agreeing, it will be interesting to see what develops from the organisers' determination to run the event, and make it the success it proved.

With over forty miles of stages in a one day format that saw crews arrive early and be off home by tea-time, inclusion in the Millers Oils Welsh Clubman Forest series, Pine Lodge Maps MSA Welsh National Championship, ASWMC Loose Surface Championship and ANWCC Forest Championship the rally provided keen competition from the outset.

Stage one went to the Hunter Focus WRC, from Richard and Sara Ceen (below) in their similar car, the Jones MG sharing that second spot on identical time, over the eight and a half miles from Walters Arena down to the valley bottom.

The Hunter Ford retained the lead on stage two, near five miles of fast flowing stage further down the Neath Valley to finish near Abergarwed, free of the radar traps that once so influenced Wales Rally GB and a measure of the Police confidence in the good conduct of the rally.

With speed confined to the forests it was an MG that was in pursuit of the Focus WRC, Jones a mere three seconds in arrears, a situation he would reverse on stage three, as the rally took in the seven miles of the first Rhondda stage.

Michael O’Brien got his Focus into a stage second here, four seconds down on the MG, with Hunter plummeting down to sixth fastest, seventeen seconds adrift of the leader.

Damian Cole was third, albeit rather distant in his Get Connected Hyundai WRC, though he was rewarded by second overall at the finish, as Jones elected to non-finish.

The fifth stage was another run through Rheola, the Jones MG again fastest, but by a mere two seconds from Hunter, his Focus literally on the hunt, the Cole Hyundai third on the stage and in third overall place.

Into the final seven miles it was then, another Rhondda run, with the white MG again fastest by seven seconds from the pursuing Ford Focus WRC, as Martyn and Ian England got their Mitsubishi Evo9RS into third, their best run of a day that saw them consistently in the top ten stage times that also brought the class victory.

At the finish Hunter and Marchbank took the winners laurels, as the Jones/Bull MG slipped away, their job done, Damian Cole and Den Golding took runners up from Pete Egerton and Paul Spooner, their Hyundai Accent in the top five placings throughout the day after a consistent run.