Halloween at Farmer Ted's Farm Park...

YES ghoulish goings on at Farmer Teds on Halloween night as the end of Farmer Ted's Halloweek came to a close.   These are a few shots that we took as we popped over. 

For more information about Farmer Teds go to:- www.farmerteds.com.

Rally Success turns National Journalist into local hero

NATIONAL newspaper sports journalist Jonathan McEvoy scored a second impressive rally finish, this time in his native North Wales in the Cambrian Rally on 4 November 2006 which finished on Llandudno sea front as he was cheered home, the local hero. Born in Rhyl, Jon - previously a regional journalist in North Wales and Liverpool - received plaudits from his former colleagues and local spectators after bravely agreeing to accept his second rally challenge with the Sportinglife.com team, following the Plains Rally last
month. Ultimately, Jon has been set the task of co-driving at international level in the World Rally Championship finale at the Wales Rally GB in December. With backing from the Daily Mail, he will be writing about his quest along the way, while taking the
co-driving seat alongside rally driver and Liverpool born broadcaster Tony Jardine, who has set him the arduous task of obtaining an international navigators license in time for the WRC event.

By finishing 38th overall and third in class, out of 83 crews who made it to the finish on the national Cambrian Rally, McEvoy is now half way through his challenge – he has two events and two upgrades under his belt and two to go before qualifying as an international co-driver. But it proved to be a trying second event for McEvoy, as the team very nearly failed to finish when they were close to being knocked out by the clock.

While Jon was in navigational difficulties having to use small maps instead of the normal detailed road books, car 16’s seasoned navigator Vicky Johnson came to the  rescue on Friday with full ordnance survey maps to help McEvoy find the difficult forest stage entrances.

The next time the team saw Vicky she was frantically waving at the Sportinginglife.com crew to slow down - she had just survived a huge crash with her driver Nik Elsmore and was to come to the rescue again slowing their M-Sport Fiesta to avoid the wreck.

Also damaged on the same stage was Steve Perez’s £200,000 classic Lancia Stratos, once driven by rally legends Sandro Munari and Markku Alen.

Immediately after the incident of Vicky Johnson’s crew, the Castrol Fiesta of Jardine and McEvoy took a wrong turn on the forest access roads ending up having to reverse painfully and slowly up half a mile of tight forest track. Then, they had to dodge support vehicles coming at them down a single track lane as they tried to locate the sixth and longest stage of the day. McEvoy and Jardine just scraped into the time control by seconds, aware that they nearly lost a precious upgrade signature through a non finish.

Jardine commented:- “The Cambrian Rally system with no road books and only small colour maps to cover miles of complex welsh forests, left even experienced navigators bewildered – never mind a journalist thrown in at the deep end on only his second ever rally! The clock nearly knocked us out but instead we survived to take third in class. Jon was cool throughout, I’m impressed, he passed his second test!”

The team also managed to survive a high speed puncture as one of their normally bullet proof Kumho tyres was sliced open by some razor sharp rocks at the end of special stage five. “Luckily it was in an open space at the end of a stage, we didn’t hit anything and we were able to change it”, said McEvoy. Team boss Olly Marshall, of ProSpeed in York, who runs the Castrol backed Ford Fiesta on behalf of the Sportinglife.com rally team, was pleased his charges finished their second rally in style.

Marshall said:- “This event included the challenging North Wales stages of Penmachno and Clocaenog near Betws-y-Coed and five cars were wrecked alone in the first forest stage. Jon and Tony kept up a great pace all day dealing with some very difficult conditions so to end third in class is a great performance and the car was in great shape unlike many others. Now we are half way to the World Championship qualification.”

The rally started early on the Saturday with a blast around the perilous Great Orme cliff road high above the Irish Sea. The rally then finished with a blast back round the Orme, but this time in the opposite direction.

McEvoy said:- “I was feeling tired after all the navigational problems and continual concentration but the thought of the sea 300 feet below the sheer cliff road soon woke me up.”

Driver Tony Jardine who now works for Sky Sports said:- “I turned to Jon after the rally was over to congratulate him but he was too tired to enjoy the result. I reminded him that if we get to Wales Rally GB WRC in December we will have completed about one eighth of the distance, a mere scratch. Clearly he needs more training but he is getting there.”