By Paul Evans
Spencer Sport has taken the British Rallycross Championship by surprise, as the team from the small village of Penrhiwllan, near Llandysul, heads to the home of British Rallycross, Lydden Hill, on Easter Bank Holiday Monday, in the overall lead of the series.
Of course it’s not so much of a surprise to the people of West Wales, as it’s a region rich in motorsport expertise. Llanwrda-based Melvyn Evans Motorsport currently leads the Protyre MSA Asphalt Rally Championship, Llangybi is the home to Tim Duffee Engineering, which has built championship winning race at rally Darrians for decades, and MCR Race Cars, based near St. Davids, designs, builds and races championship-winning prototypes. And that’s only scratching the surface of all the successful motorsport teams, engineers, drivers and co-drivers who make West Wales a motorsport hotbed of talent.
Spencer Sport is synonymous with rallying – indeed, its team manager Charlie Jukes was some peddler in his day, and is now very much hands-on in giving expert driver advice to talented youngsters, while his dedicated team builds and runs cars such as Fiesta R2s and R5s. The team has developed a strong relationship with Mitsubishi over recent years, developing both the highly successful R5-spec Mirage rally car and its flame-spitting rallycross machine, the Mitsubishi Mirage RX Supercar.
The four-wheel drive Mirage RX Supercar is powered by a 600bhp two-litre turbocharged 16-valve engine, which can out-accelerate a Formula One car from a standing start.
The Mirage RX made its UK competition debut at the Welsh Motorsports Centre in Pembrey last year. Driven by James Grint – brother of actor Rupert Grint, famous for playing Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter films – it won one of the heats and went on to finish fourth in the grand final. It then raised more eyebrows at the Goodwood Festival of Speed Hillclimb and at a round of the European Rallycross Championship in France.
For the opening round of the 2018 British Rallycross Championship at Silverstone, Spencer Sport drafted in Julian Godfrey, a five-time British Rallycross Champion. Against tough opposition, he scored maximum points to top the table after the opening round – and, despite Godfrey having his own rallycross car parking in his garage, so impressed was he with the Mirage RX that he’ll contest Round 2 in the car on Monday as well.
“The Mitsubishi Mirage RX performed very well at Silverstone and we had some fantastic technical feedback from Julian on various aspects of the car,” said Jukes. “The team did a great job in the short time between races to make bodywork repairs and technical adjustments, and the logical thing to do was to go to the second round of the British Rallycross Championship at Lydden Hill with Julian and continue from where we left off at Silverstone – which is a very strong position! It’s great to be heading to the second round leading the British Rallycross Championship, which proves how competitive the Mirage RX Supercar is.”
The race meeting at Lydden Hill takes place on Easter Bank Holiday Monday (April 2) and has attracted a bumper entry, with 10 Supercars expected to compete for top honours.