The opening round of this years 205 Challenge certainly proved entertaining but the weather was awesome and I am sure contributed to a lot of the carnage on the event. We had everything from sunshine to snow, hail, rain gale force winds and a lot debate about whether you were better off on tarmac or gravel tyres.
Stage 1 saw Andy Chalmers take a commanding lead, I thing he was about 12th quickest overall, or own Chris Hellings who was co-driven on this occasion by his father Andy was second with Lucas on his very first stage 4th.
Stage 2 ended Andy's hopes when the ignition module failed leaving him stranded on the stage, Chris put in another quick time to give him a nice buffer with which to defend first place. Lucas once again had a clean stage and moved up to 3rd place. Shane Keilthy was also well on the pace and will be someone we have to watch as the season progresses. 
Lucas, seen here on the left was certainly enjoying his first outing, with dad Richard on hand to offer encouragement. Co-driver Stefan who had got up at 3.0am to get to the start didn't seem to be flagging but like the rest of the competitors couldn't understand why he had left a nice warm bed to freeze to death in the middle of nowhere.
Chris and Andy were pleased with progress so far and were enjoying a bit of reliability which had eluded them last year. It was very satisfying to see how well Chris was handling the unusual pressure of being leader of the pack.
Not so kucky was Sam Jones who managed to roll his 1400 and was soon putting the remains on the trailer.
Stages 3 & 4 passed without incident, Chris & Shane matching times and enjoying a really fine battle, a mistake on the 2nd stage by Shane had given Chris the buffer to take some of the pressure off though not enough to let him relax. Lucas meanwhile had started to drop time, and before stage 6 I asked Stefan to maybe give him a bit of a push.
What a mistaka to maka. First I knew was when Darky came over and said "its not too bad". I thought he was on about one of the cars he was running, but oh no. Lucas had joined a load of others who on the day had put their cars on their roofs.
As soon as the car got back to service, series scrutineer Dominic Hodge came over to check the car and to make sure that damage was in no way going to compromise the crews safety. Having checked the roll cage and the rest of the car we were given the all clear to get the car ready for the next stage. We had about an hour and a half to get the car ready so no major dramas. While I checked Chris' car Andy Tearle who until then had had very little to do other than to add fuel started removing broken glass, fixing covering for the missing windows & generally sorting out the mess. I am told by Stefan that shortly before Lucas had asked him what it was like to roll. Now you know.
An accident on stage 7 meant a very long delay and stage 8 was cancelled so it all came down to this stage. When Chris came in he was told to go to post event scrutineering and while we were there Shane came in. Both drivers were so anxious about times but once again Chris had edged Shane, just 1 second this time but enough to give Chris & father Andy the class win & first pot of the year.
Well done everyone. Lucas by the way finished 6th
1400 Champions 2006 & 2007
