Rory Hall together with Ross Motor Club vice-chairman Will Rogers on the notes took top local honours on last weekend's Plains National Rally, finishing 18th overall and eighth in class in a new Subaru Impreza N14. The Welshpool-based event had attracted a high quality entry of 130 cars for this dual BTRDA and Welsh encounter over seven hot and dusty tests on offer in the forests of Hafren, Pantperthog, Dyfi and Gartheniog with the ever popular Woodyard test rounding off proceedings. Hall and Rogers had a fairly trouble-free day, learning the new car as the day wore on, and just pipped fellow locals Bob Morgan and Ade Williams in the Skoda S2000 Evo on the final stage. Morgan and Williams got off to a bad start with an off on stage one leaving them 29th overall, this was followed a further time loss by catching a car on the third test, which was limping out with a puncture, but gradually things improved stage by stage and they were embroiled in a good battle with Hall and Rogers going into the last stage, but dropped five seconds on the Woodyard test to Hall, leaving them well satisfied with 19th overall and third in class in the Winner Garage-backed car. Chepstow duo Sacha Kakad and Andrew Price continued their domination of class N3 with yet another class win and 44th overall in the Ford Fiesta ST. Dan Gray and Matt Rogers in the IM Gray Plumbing & Heating Peugeot 106 were looking to continue their good early season form in the Morris Lubricants 1400 series. The Ross duo didn't start well, badly damaging the exhaust on stage two, this caused considerable power loss over the next two tests, until it was replaced at service. The first two stages in the afternoon went well, only for the clutch cable to snap on the long Gartheniog stage costing around 40 seconds, but they survived to arrive back in Welshpool 47th overall and fourth in class but second 1400 and championship points. For Simon Pickering and Colin Jenkins in the pinto-engined mk1 Escort RS1600, it was about picking up more Dennis Motorsport Welsh Historic points, but the pair made a dreadful start with a puncture on the opening stage, costing a lot of time. From then on Simon struggled to find a good rythym on stages that were getting rough but they finished 63rd and fourth in class. The overall event was won by the Ford Focus WRC of Euan Thorburn and Paul Beaton by just eight seconds from the Impreza S11 of Dave Weston jnr and Dave Robson with Steve Petch and Ian Windress only 19 seconds in arrears in another Focus WRC.