Accrington marshals were out all weekend to support Wales Rally GB. The team helped set up the National Service Park at Deeside on Thursday and then headed out to the remote mountains above Bala to the Aberhirnant stage for the 2 stages on Saturday; one to be run at night.
Just before the running of the night stage the weather turned and with windy conditions the light rain turned to fog.

“We were in the middle of nowhere, in the fog, the night and the mud. I thought it was game over,”

The team saw World Champion Sebastian Ogier arrive at their stop control with a punctured front left tyre and damaged brakes. The remote location meant he was out of radio contact with his M-Sport team. “I was trying my best to try to fix this car which was quite bad. The front left was missing the discs, the pads, everything. In a very short time we had to find a solution to find some brakes but we drove the last stage and we made it.

The rally leader is through stage 15 safely increasing his lead to 49.8s. “It’s totally mad. Just totally mad.”

Sunday took the marshals out to the Brenig stage and the car wash at Abergele.

Elfyn Evans with local lad Daniel Barritt navigating won Wales Rally GB-their first WRC victory. Elfyn is the first British winner of the event since Richard Burns in 2000. M-Sport also took the constructors title for the first time since 2007. Congratulations!