An epic battle - Four Drivers, One title!

All eyes are on the final race of the 2013 Get Connect Connected MSA Asphalt Rally Championship, taking place at the Otterburn Military Ranges in Northumberland. In what promises to be the most exciting climax yet, the UTS Cheviot Keith Knox Stages Rally will decide the final standings in the championship. The competition has been intense and astonishingly four drivers enter this final race with a shot at the title.

Over sixty entrants are lining up to compete in this stage, with 2012 winner John Indri taking pole position. Indri has replaced the Darrian T90 GTR, which has seen him stay in contention with the competition, with a Subaru Impreza S11. This is a brave move late on in the season, but as all the other contenders are in World Rally Cars, it could make the difference. He has also enlisted the services of Chelmsford driver Josh Davison for the event hoping his ‘local’ knowledge will pay dividends.

Damian Cole in his Ford Focus WRC starts behind Indri, but arrives in Northumberland as the Championship leader and has his sights set on a record-breaking fourth consecutive title.

Meanwhile Steve Simpson/Patrick Walsh (Subaru Impreza WRC) and Paul Bird (Ford

Focus WRC) also have designs on the Championship. Simpson was the 2007 Asphalt

Champion and both he and Walsh have previously won events on Otterburn, while Bird’s

tally so far this year includes outright wins on both the Manx National and ALMC Stages

Rallies. Plus a second overall on the recent Patriot Stages at Caerwent, despite it being his first visit to the venue.

With so many competitors in with a chance at the title, an epic struggle for supremacy is set to unfold. It is not quite a winner takes all scenario, but it would certainly not harm their title chances.

Many other teams are bidding to settle individual scores, beat personal bests and increase points tallies, and to finish as strongly as they can in the final stage of the championship. The Championship this year has been a fantastic spectacle, and the fierce competition coming into the final stage shows the high performance levels that the drivers have been competing at.

From an entry of 60, twenty-two crews on the UTS Cheviot Keith Knox Stages are registered

for the MSA Asphalt Rally Championship. The first car leaves the start of the UTS Cheviot Keith Knox Stages Rally on the Ranges at 8.30am on Sunday 20th October and, thirteen stages and 92 competitive miles later, arrives back at the finish at the Otterburn Castle Country House Hotel (Rally HQ) at 4.30pm that afternoon.

For further details of the REIS – Get Connected MSA Asphalt Rally Championship, please

contact the Championship Coordinator :

Andrew Haill – 

Tel : 0121 313 1416

E-mail : andrew.haill@btconnect.com

Web: www.asphaltrallying.wordpress.com

Round 9 (Final) : UTS CHEVIOT KEITH KNOX STAGES RALLY (20th October)