The Mid Wales Stages Rally has always been a popular event with competitors and spectators alike. The return of the MSA British Rally Championship brought more cars, more competitors and more spectators to the event including our GT and Endurance photographer, Nick Smith from The Image Team. We sent him to Wales as part of the series of photographic challenges we have been setting him, to capture the event from public areas, with strict instructions to bring back 20-30 great photos.
Saturday saw him in the service park as teams set up and finished preparing the cars ahead of the opening round. At night he headed to Sweet Lamb Rally Complex for the first stage. On Sunday he was up with the lark for the long climb to the summit of Pikes Peak, the Welsh rally stage named after the famous Colorado hill climb. The afternoon saw him down in the bowl at Sweet Lamb to capture cars over the jump.
He over provided and after sorting through 748 photos from the service park and three of the six stages he has brought this distillation of images. Our first gallery from the event focuses on the B1 class cars which include R5 spec ultra-modern machines and S2000 cars.
Galleries from the B2 and other classes and the national event are still to come. You can still see our other challenge galleries, the Riponian Forest Stages Rally and MGJ Engineering Brands Hatch Winter Stages Rally too. Nick will be going to more events throughout the year to take photographs from the spectator stands and bring back galleries for you to see. If you have an idea for an event he can cover, let us know via the contact form.
All photographs in this gallery are credit Nick Smith/TheImageTeam.com and the full 748 images from the event can be viewed on his website shortly.