{"id":1586,"date":"2021-07-05T17:32:08","date_gmt":"2021-07-05T16:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/176.32.230.251\/melvynevansmotorsport.com\/?p=1586"},"modified":"2021-07-05T17:32:10","modified_gmt":"2021-07-05T16:32:10","slug":"customer-updates-meirion-evans-scores-first-major-rally-win-of-his-career-and-first-for-the-volkswagen-polo-gti-r5-and-michelin-pilot-sport-a-tyre-in-the-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/176.32.230.251\/melvynevansmotorsport.com\/2021\/07\/05\/customer-updates-meirion-evans-scores-first-major-rally-win-of-his-career-and-first-for-the-volkswagen-polo-gti-r5-and-michelin-pilot-sport-a-tyre-in-the-uk\/","title":{"rendered":"Customer Updates – Meirion Evans scores first major rally win of his career \u2013 and first for the Volkswagen Polo GTI R5 and Michelin Pilot Sport A tyre in the UK"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Meirion Evans has\nscored his first major rally win of his career after taking the overall victory\non the Dunoon Presents Argyll Rally in Scotland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In doing so, he\nalso gave the Volkswagen Polo GTI R5 and Michelin Pilot Sport A tyre its first\noutright rally victory in the UK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The inaugural\nsealed surface Argyll Rally, held over 13 spectacular closed road stages around\nthe town of Dunoon, on the Cowal peninsula in the south of Argyll and Bute, was\nMeirion\u2019s first rally outing since the Aarova Rally in Belgium in October last\nyear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having been out\nof his Melvyn Evans Motorsport-run and The Scan Station-backed Polo GTI R5 for\neight long months, the 25-year old Welshman naturally started cautiously \u2013 but\nby the end of the event, he and co-driver Jonathan Jackson were back to the\npace they were competing at pre-lockdown, and the fastest crew on day two of\nthe event. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With 120\ndrivers contesting the Mull Car Club organised event, which hosted a round of both\nthe Scottish and Northern England Tarmacadam rally championships, the battle\nfor Argyll Rally honours was closely fought. In fact, the final results were\nonly confirmed after Freddie Milne\/Patrick Walsh and David Wright\/Paula\nSwinscoe (both in Ford Fiesta R5s) were each given a one-minute penalty for\nclipping a chicane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Image : Eddie Kelly Motorsport Photography <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

With no such\ndramas to worry about, all Meirion could do was wait for the outcome of the\nenquiries \u2013 and when everything was finalised he could celebrate a fine\nvictory; finishing 20 seconds ahead of second placed Daniel Harper\/Chris\nCampbell (Mini WRC), while Milne and Wright dropped to third and fourth\nrespectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was\nMeirion\u2019s first major rally win, although he had won the Formula 1000 Junior\nRally Championship section twice before \u2013 finishing first overall on the Glyn\nMemorial Junior Stages and Peter Lloyd Rallying Junior Stages in 2012, driving\na Nissan Micra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s certainly\nnice to get my first major overall rally win under my belt, and hopefully it\nwill open the door to many more in the future,\u201d said Meirion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was nice to\ndo a rally again after such a long time \u2013 and once you got into the car and\nonto the stages the world just felt normal again. There was a lot of\nCovid-compliance stuff to adhere to outside the car, but once you were out on\nthe stages everything felt exactly like it used to, which was wonderful!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe stages\nwere very tricky and technical. They weren\u2019t particularly long, but they were\nbusy \u2013 with very few straight sections, blind crests, jump and bumps. There was\nno margin for error whatsoever, so it was easy to get caught out if you weren\u2019t\nconcentrating one hundred per cent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe opening\nstage in particular was very narrow and I was far too cautious on that and\npretty much all of the first leg. I made some small set up changes to the car\nafter the overnight halt, mainly because it was bottoming out on the bumps and\ncrashing up against the sump guard, and it immediately felt better. The harder\nyou push the Volkswagen Polo GTI R5 the better it responds and the easier it is\nto drive, so things began to click on day two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Image : Eddie Kelly Motorsport Photography <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe new\nMichelin Pilot Sport A tyre was fantastic \u2013 we started conservatively but as\nthe event went on, we had the confidence to switch from the soft to the medium\ncompound for the very last loop of stages, which took everything to another\nlevel again. By the end of the event, it felt like we were back to where we\nwere in terms of performance about eighteen months ago, when we were competing\non a far more regular basis, so I was very pleased with that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was certainly nice to come away from the Argyll Rally with a number of firsts \u2013 the first rally win in the UK for the Volkswagen Polo GTI R5 and the new Michelin Pilot Sport A tyre along with my first major overall rally win. We were a little bit rusty on the first day, but we were fastest on day two and all-in-all I was pretty pleased with everything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Argyll Rally \u2013 top 10 finishers<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Meirion\nEvans\/Jonathan Jackson (Volkswagen Polo GTI R5)\u2026.52mins 29secs<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Daniel\nHarper\/Chris Campbell (Mini WRC)\u2026.52mins 49secs<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Freddie\nMilne\/Patrick Walsh (Ford Fiesta R5)\u2026.53 mins 12secs<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. David\nWright\/Paula Swinscoe (Ford Fiesta R5)\u2026.53mins 32secs<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. Jock\nArmstrong\/Cameron Fair (Ford Fiesta)\u2026.54mins 58secs<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6. John\nMacCrone\/Stuart Loudon (Skoda Fabia R5)\u2026.55mins 00secs<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7. Gareth\nSayers\/Gareth Gilchrist (Ford Fiesta R5)\u2026.55mins 10secs<\/p>\n\n\n\n

8. Damian\nToner\/Denver Rafferty (Ford Escort Mk2)\u2026.55mins 20secs<\/p>\n\n\n\n

9. Aidan Wray\/Kieran\nMcGrath (Ford Fiesta R5)\u2026.56mins 24secs<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10. Richard\nHill\/Steffan Evans (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo)\u2026.56mins 49secs<\/p>\n\n\n


\n
\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Meirion Evans has scored his first major rally win of his career after taking the overall victory on the Dunoon Presents Argyll Rally in Scotland. In doing so, he also gave the Volkswagen Polo GTI […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1583,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[100,25,28,103],"class_list":{"0":"post-1586","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-customer-updates","8":"tag-100","9":"tag-customers","10":"tag-meirion-evans","11":"tag-vw-polo-r5"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.251\/melvynevansmotorsport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.251\/melvynevansmotorsport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.251\/melvynevansmotorsport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.251\/melvynevansmotorsport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.251\/melvynevansmotorsport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1586"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.251\/melvynevansmotorsport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1587,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.251\/melvynevansmotorsport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1586\/revisions\/1587"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.251\/melvynevansmotorsport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.251\/melvynevansmotorsport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.251\/melvynevansmotorsport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.251\/melvynevansmotorsport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}