THE good form continues for Ian Barnes after the Swindon-based rally driver overcame a few last-minute hitches to secure a solid finish in Sunday’s Mid Wales Post Historic Stages Rally.

After collecting 29 points in the opening round of the Welsh Historic Rally Championship last month, he has now added a further 19 points to his total after the second-round rally at the weekend.

The result places him third overall in the Welsh Championship after two rounds.

For a few hours on Saturday morning it looked as though the team were going to fail to make the rally after a series of last minute problems meant they were two hours late leaving the Bicester based Major Motorsport workshops.

“The car had me very worried, the alternator failed just before we loaded the car on the trailer and not only did we have to track down an alternator in Bicester we also had to replace the battery as it had been damaged by the failed alternator,” said Barnes.

“We then started the car only to find that one of the carburettors was overfilling with fuel, flooding the engine so it had to be stripped down and rebuilt.

“Fortunately, we had no delays en route to Newtown and eventually made ‘scrutineering’ on time.”

The rally itself also brought new experiences for the rookie Barnes.

The Mid Wales rally was the opening round of the British Historic Rally Championship which runs under very strict technical regulations.

“Most rallies do not run parc ferme conditions, but the British Historic Rally Championship rounds do,” added Barnes.

“The car had to be impounded after scrutineering and we were only able to get the car back 30 minutes before the start of the rally on Sunday morning.”

The team had clearly sorted the earlier problems as the car ran very well all day over the 48 stage miles of the rally.

Furthermore, on the longest stage of the day - the 14 mile Hafren South stage - Barnes had to abandon his run to aid the crew of a crashed car.

“Unfortunately a car running a little ahead of us had gone off the road about 10 miles into the stage and we could only see the bottom of the car as it was lying on its side in a ditch,” he said.

“With nobody visible at the scene we had to stop to help. This meant we received a notional time for that stage, which was a fair one but it was a shame that we were unable to finish or set a time on the best stage of the day.

The crew of the crashed car were not seriously hurt but did require medical assistance.

The historic rally was won by Julian Reynolds and Patrick Walsh, also driving a Mk1 Escort which was newly built for this years’ British Championship. Barnes and his co-driver Melanie Holmes finished 20th overall and 10th in class in a field of considerably more experienced drivers.