Champion Clark’s clean-sweep swept away

For the first time in 2007 Barry Clark/Scott Martin have not won a round of the Fiesta SportingTrophy International series after retiring from day 2 of Rally RACC Catalunya Costa Daurada. Clark, who has already wrapped up the FSTi championship, was looking for an amazing clean-sweep of overall victories with just two rounds remaining in the series.

The retirement was due to an accident on the 15.85 kilometre Margalef test resulting in a plunge down a 30 foot drop. A muddy coating on the smooth asphalt road was to blame as Clark came into a fast corner, was unable to slow the car down sufficiently and slid along the muddy surface and off the road.

Fortunately the speed he was carrying made things far easier for rescue crews and the car was able to be recovered and, remarkably, repaired overnight by his David Greer Motorsport service crew. At the time the 25-year-old had won four stages and was comfortably leading the FSTi section by over one minute.

Restarting on Sunday in somewhat of a battered Stobart Ford Fiesta ST, Clark still managed fastest times on two of the four tests finishing the event sixth in class and second FSTi competitor.

The event proved testing for crews with a heavy downpour on Thursday night cancelling the ceremonial start, due to take place in Salou centre, and making conditions extremely difficult during the opening leg. For Saturday and Sunday’s legs the heavens were kinder to competitors offering blue skies and warm, humid temperatures; delighting also the huge number of spectators who flocked to the Spanish stages.

"It’s a bit of a shame that we couldn’t win again and it was not far off in the end though. I was looking forward to taking the win on each round, but that’s rallying I guess. There was a lot of mud on the road and we just slid straight off down a 30 foot drop, we might have been saved if the safety barrier was up but Kalle Pinomaki had taken it out earlier in the day.

We landed straight on the bonnet and I thought the damage was too severe to re-start, but it was a great effort by the guys to have it ready to re-enter under SupeRally on Sunday; they had it all ready by Saturday night. Second is still a good result and I’m happy that we managed to get a run over the majority of the stages here and gain the experience for future events."

Fiesta SportingTrophy International Championship standings:

1 Barry CLARK GBR 10 10 10 10 10 8 58

2 Vytautas BARANAUSKAS LIT DNF 6 4 8 8 10 36

3 Evgeniy VERTUNOV RUS 8 5 8- - - 21

4 Simon HUGHES GBR 5 8 6 - - - 19

5 Gianni BARBATI ITA - 4 5 - - - 9

6 José Maria SANTANA ESP - - - - - 6 6

= Sveinung BIELTVEDT NOR 6 - - - - - 6

7 Miguel MONTEIRO POR - 3 - - - - 3

- Glenn Patterson -