Four racing members of the Pembroke Haven and District (PHD) Autograss Club travelled to York recently to take part in the Ladies and Juniors National Autograss Championship Finals.
It proved to be a very successful weekend with the two Junior drivers Rachel Dewhurst (Pembroke Dock) and Jessica Murdoch (Milford Haven) both competing in their first major championship giving very creditable performances in an entry of 96 with both Rachel and Jessica proving they can compete against the boys and all of the country's top Juniors racers, with Jessica very unlucky not to make the prestigious National Final just being eliminated at the semi-final stage.
In the Ladies class 1 Daphne Mousley (St. Clears) drove faultlessly all weekend to take a fine third place in Sunday's final, it was a great result for the very experienced Daphne as Class 1 was the largest entry of all the Ladies classes with nearly 40 entries. It was also a great triumph for St. Clears garage proprietor Meurig Davies (a National Champion himself in the 1970s) who had prepared the car to compete at the highest level. Hiefena James (St. Clears) also came home with a fine third place trophy in the Class 7 final, 12 times National Champion Hiefena who retired from Autograss at the start of this season borrowed back her old twin 1000cc motor bike engined Peugeot to compete in the championships and looked at one time to be on her way to her 13th National title but in one of the best finals of the day had to be content with a fine third place and proved that despite having only one drive this season is still up there with the best.
Next weekend it is the turn of the Men to compete in the Men's National finals at St. Florence hosted by the neighbouring West Wales League. PHD will be represented by eight drivers who have qualified through their South Wales League. In Class 1 the very experienced Paul Pearce (Pembroke Dock) and Mark Uka (Pembroke) will be flying the flag in their very competitive 1000cc Minis, then in Class 7 Dicky Lindsay (Tenby) and Norman Mason (Narberth) will be competing in the anything goes super saloon class in their similar Peugeot machines. Dicky, who leads the British Autograss Series in this class, uses 2 Honda Blackbird 1000cc Engines while Norman in his first season in class 7 uses the Yamaha equivalent in the ex Noel James car.
In the specials classes PHD are well represented by Milford Haven brothers Steve and Phil Rogers, Steve returning to racing this season again using motor bike power in the very competitive class 8, and Phil who is the current British Autograss Series champion in Class 9 with his Millington engined special will be all out to add the National Title to his long list of achievements, sadly team mate and one of his main rivals for the title Steve Lindsay (Tenby) the youngest ever men's National champion back in 1997 did not qualify due to engine problems. In class 10 the club have two cars qualified John Shannahan who travels over from Cork to race for the PHD club and popular tyre fitter David Parry (Templeton) who brings the ex Bruce Campbell Honda V6 powered special to the championships having improved in every meeting in his new machine.
Besides Steve Lindsay listed as reserves for the championships are Lee Pearce (Pembroke Dock) and Tony Hughes (Penycwm) who will hope to get a late chance to compete for the biggest prize in Autograss Racing.