John Darby's account of the third World Indoor Rally Championship and held in the Dartmouth Guild Hall on Saturday 27th November.
"The four well laid out Tracks sponsored by Best Ltd, Chris Moseley Builders Ltd, Lemar Engines and Woodlands Leisure Park proved to be more of a challenge than the previous years, especially on track Three (Woodlands Run) at Paddy's Point after DTs Straight many found themselves going off into the distance and on to the floor.
The Juniors were away early with parents as their coaches. A well fought battle between the top three led to the winner Tommy Stewart with a time of 1: min 08.17 secs that would have seen him ninth in the open event. The Lady's trophy (The Bawden Cup) initially was held by Cathy Rowe, later on Jen Pichowski held top spot for most of the day until a late challenge from Evie Holmes who won with a time of 1: min 14.62 secs.
The Open event (World Champion) had a handful of people on the top of the leader board with Tim Slade starting the ball rolling, then 2008 title holder Jamie Hudson-Bond arrived and soon started putting down faster laps although he took a while to get to grips with track One (Best Park) He had to go early in the evening and left with a time of 57.03secs which was nearly 10 seconds faster than any one else. At about 8.00pm Dale Lott the current world champion turned up and started to eat away at Jamie's times until at about 9.30pm he did knock him off top spot and as Jamie was not
there to defend his time and nobody else was in there class Dale took the title again with a 55.84sec time the only two people to get below a minute as the competitor who came third Alasdair Geary (Nottingham) had a time of 1: min 01.36 secs. The event raised over £800 (with more money to be announced by Barclays Bank thanks to Andrew Hood) for the Exeter based Greyhound Sanctuary."
WIRC
1. Dale Lott (Paignton) 55.84
2. Jamie Hudson-Bond (Dartmouth) 57.03
3. Alasdair Geary (Nottingham) 1:01.36
4. Elliot Bawden 1:01.94
5. Arron Stephens 1:04.63
6. Lee Curtis 1:05.94
7. Robert Stone 1:06.94
8. Tim Slade 1:07.92
9. Ricky Gillard 1:08.49
10. Philip Pichowski 1:08.77
Junior WIRC
1.Tommy Stewart 1:08.17
2. Laurence Hopkins 1:09.08
3. Elliot Hemlett-Jones 1:10.99
4. Max 1:14.47
5. Lawrence John 1:16.53
6. Luke Hockedy 1:17.50
7. James Rawley 1:17.71
8. Josh 1:18.41
9. Thomas 1:19.21
10. Ruby 1.22.21
