STOURBRIDGE rally driver Richard Sykes had a disappointing end to Rally North Wales last weekend when his Citroën DS3 left the road on the third stage.

Sykes was using the event to gain valuable mileage in his new car ahead of starting the BTRDA Mixed Surface championship in mid-April.

The rally started with two stages in Gartheiniog forest totalling almost 14 miles. Sykes made a steady start, ending the two stages sixth in class. It was all to go wrong for Sykes and co-driver Emma Morrison on stage three though as they approached a corner too quickly and crashed into a ditch.

“The first two stages were ok, I was gaining vital experience in the car and not pushing too hard,” said Sykes. “Unfortunately we didn’t have time to recce the stages and fine tune our pacenotes before the event and we paid the price for this in stage three when Emma called one of the notes too late. I couldn’t get the car slowed in time for a corner and we went off. The car was stuck in the ditch and we couldn’t get it out so that was our event over.”

“It’s very disappointing not to have got further, I managed to learn the car more but it would’ve been better to have finished. We’ve got no more time now in the car until our championship challenge starts. It’s going to be tough to get a good result in Somerset but we’ll keep trying.”

The Somerset Stages takes place on April 18 and is based in Minehead.