A CHALLENGING route, with a few whites and all within some 10 miles radius of Newcastle Emlyn – that’s what the annual Forge Garage Cilwendeg Rally 2024 has to offer its drivers and navigators, writes Anwen Francis.

Held on Saturday night, 26 and Sunday 27 October and organised by the Teifi Valley Motor Club, 90 crews will battle it out for the winning title.

Starting from the Newcastle Emlyn Mart Car Park with scrutineering at Castle Motors in the town, the rally will start at 23.25 before concluding at the Dol-Wiber Rugby Club for the prize giving early on Sunday.

“The Cilwendeg Rally is as popular as ever, with 90 entries and 30 on the reserve list,” said Joint Clerk of the Course, Dyfan who is joined by his son, Steffan.

Dyfan, who has been Clerk of the Course or Assistant Clerk of the Course on the Cilwendeg on 21 occasions since 1994 added: “The rally will be as tough as ever using proper Cilwendeg roads. It will be good, compact with some whites – it wouldn’t be a Cilwendeg without whites!

“We’ve some new sections and some that haven’t been used since the early 90’s. We also have some top crews from Wales out and the question is, will Chris Richmond Hand retain his winning title?”

Last year’s winners – Chris Richmond Hand and Shaun Richards will start the Cilwendeg Rally in Car 1.

Chris said: “We’ll give the rally a damn good go and shall give it maximum attack. We’ll do our best of course, but last year I went out with the mentality of not doing it to win, but just two friends having fun, and we’ll do the same this year.

“We are also competing at the Killarney Historic Rally in Ireland a month or so after and the car will be having a refurb, so we’ll see how it goes.”

Hosting such an event, the largest road rally in the UK, would not be possible without the marshals, a great team of supporters and most importantly the landowners and householders along the route.

“A special thank you, diolch mawr, to everyone who has supported this rally,” said Dyfan. “The Teifi Valley Motor Club is always very grateful for the support of local people, and local businesses. We are also very grateful to our sponsors, Adrian and Keith Jones of Forge Garage, Ffos-y-Ffin – the Audi and Volkswagen specialists in Wales.”

Spectator information will be available on the night as well as Teifi Valley Motor Club merchandise.

Signing on will take place at Ysgol y Ddwylan. For further information, visit: www.teifivalleymotorclub.co.uk