THE Spencer Sport rally team showed once again that it’s a force to be reckoned with, when it scored podium positions in both the MSA British Rally Championship and the National Rally Cup on this weekend’s RSAC Scottish Rally.

Tom Cave and co-driver James Morgan gave the team its best BRC finish of the season so far, when they bought the Llandysul-based Spencer Sport Ford Fiesta R5 home in second place.

In the National Rally Cup it was the second 1-2 result for the R5 specification Mitsubishi Mirages, with Robert Blomberg/Lars Andersson finishing first and Jamie Jukes/David Williams second in the Spencer Sport car.

The RSAC Scottish Rally hosted the second round of the MSA British Rally Championship.

Before the rally Cave and Morgan played their joker, which meant their points score would be doubled for this event. They started the rally lying fourth with the toughest competition likely to come from local driver David Bogie in a Skoda R5, who had also played his joker.

The rally started well as they set two third-fastest times before the first service halt. Another pair of third-fastest runs then followed, but Tom had felt the Fiesta lose power during stage three and at the second service halt, the Spencer Sport crew got to work. The problem was soon traced to a faulty FIA turbo-boost pop-off valve and, once the offending part had been replaced, normal service was resumed.

With Moffett back in 10th and Ahlin retiring in stage four, Cave and Morgan went in pursuit of Evans and Bogie. Another third and second fastest time on stages five and six respectively, followed by the cancellation of stage seven, meant that it was all down to the final stage.

A huge push from Cave and Morgan saw them set the fastest time and claim second place behind Evans and ahead of Bogie, who had encountered problems at the end of the stage.

“This result just goes to show that it’s not over until it’s over”, said Cave. “When the engine started to lose power we feared our challenge might be over, but a great job by the Spencer Sport and M-Sport engineers meant we were back in contention.”

On the Mitsubishi side of the team, the event was equally - if not more - successful. From the word go, Jukes from Llandysul and Williams led the National Rally Cup category of the event, with Blomberg and Andersson a close second. This pattern continued right up until the sixth stage, when a puncture slowed Jukes and Williams by 30 seconds. Only a few seconds behind, Blomberg and Andersson seized the opportunity and took the lead.

With just one stage left to go - due to the abandoned stage seven - and with both Mitsubishi Mirages very equally matched, there was little Jukes and Williams could do to reverse the situation, but for Spencer Sport - who are the official distributors of these cars in the UK and Ireland - it was a very satisfying result.

The next outing for the Spencer Sport team is the fifth round of the MSA British Rally Championship: the mixed surface Nicky Grist Stages Rally that takes place on July 9 and 10 on the gravel and asphalt roads over the Epynt Military Ranges in South Wales.