Bentham’s David Wright suffered a disappointing early retirement on last Saturday’s Nicky Grist Stages rally when an alternator problem caused him to stop after the first stage.
Wright was hopeful of a good result on the Builth Wells-based event after recent successes and he lined up at the start line of the opening Monument stage in his Kumho Tyres, Proflex, Drenth, York Brewery, Millers Oils and Grove Hill Garage-backed GPM Mitsubishi Evo 9 aiming for a top three position. His hopes were dashed when five seconds before he was due to start the stage the engine revs surged and then the engine cut out. After 30 seconds the car was restarted but the stage was run with the engine in road mode rather than competition mode resulting in a large time loss.
With no chance to repair the problem and a risk of damage to the engine if he continued Wright retired once he had completed the stage.
“It is very disappointing to retire from the event, especially as the stages used are some of my favourite in the UK but there was nothing we could do unfortunately,” said Wright. “The problem occurred as we were being counted down to start the stage. We think it was caused by the alternator surging in power but we’ll check it all out in the next few days.”
“We’ve had a really good run of success recently and it’s unfortunate that we could not continue the run on Saturday. Thank you to all the sponsors for their support.”
Wright’s next event is likely to be the Merrick Stages in South West Scotland which takes place in early September.
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