Kumho reports initial 2013 rally successes

The 2013 rally season is still young, but Kumho shares it is ”already making its mark” on the UK championships. For example, Alex Allingham's ex-Prodrive Subaru Impreza N10 that took outright honours at the Rally Marketing Mid-Wales Stages event on 3 March did so courtesy of Kumho gravel tyres.

The rally was the first occasion on which Stalybridge-based Allingham and co-driver Chris Williams competed together, and their priorities were to finish the event and get used to operating alongside each other – Kumho notes that actually winning the four-stage rally, never mind by so substantial a margin as 58.9 seconds, had therefore never entered their heads. During his victory speech Allingham said: “I’d like to thank Kumho for supplying tyres that have worked brilliantly in the cool and dry conditions we’ve faced today.”

Having won this second round of the Pirelli MSA Welsh National Rally Championship, the new team are now readying themselves to tackle the next qualifying event, Rally North Wales, which takes place in and around Welshpool over the weekend of 5 and 6 April.

Historic runners doing well on Kumho rubber

The 3 March event also served as the first round of the West Wales Spares RAC Rally Championship for historic cars, and Kumho runners again enjoyed success. Most notable was the MKII Escort pairing of Marty McCormack and Phil Clarke, the outright winners of last November’s Roger Albert Clark Rally. On this occasion they eventually had to give best to the similarly mounted duo of Nick Elliott and Dave Price, but only after a battle that persisted throughout all five stages.

Yet another crew making the most of their Kumho tyres were the young Welsh ace Dylan Davies and his co-driver Llion Williams, who guided their MKI Escort home to a fine class victory.

Commenting on the results, Kumho’s European motorsport manager Steve Thompson said: “There’s no guarantee that the success of one season will carry into the next, so it’s always rewarding to see our tyres chalking up some early wins. It’s also good to welcome some new talent to the Kumho fold. I look forward to what we hope will be another great year of motorsport for our brand.”