Scottish duo David Bogie and Kevin Rae stormed to an easy victory on last weekends Weir Engineering Wyedean Forest Rally in the Ford Focus WRC.

The BTRDA and Pirelli Welsh championship openers attracted a fairly low entry by Wyedean standards of 135 cars, which left a somewhat windswept Chepstow Racecourse on Saturday morning for 45 miles of wet slippery forestry roads in the Forest of Dean and Wye Valley.

The five-times Scottish champion had fellow Scot and BTRDA champions Euan Thorburn and Paul Beaton hot on his heels on the opening two tests.

With Thorburn's retirement after stage two, it was left to the 07 Ford Focus WRC of Paul Bird and Aled Davies to take up the challenge, but Bogie was in a class of his own and took victory from Bird by over a minute, with the impressive Luke Francis in a B13 Lancer Evo 9 finishing third, Ollie Mellors in the awesome sounding Proton Satria/ Millington taking fourth and the group N Lancer Evo 9 of Russ Thompson and Andy Murphy rounding out the top five.

Of the local crews, Rob Smith with event sponsor Rob Weir's son Ross on the notes in the WLE/ HJ Weir Engineering Subaru Impreza S9 WRC hired from Melvyn Evans Motorsport.

After a good opening stage, they lost time in Sallowvallets, losing around 20 seconds with a high speed spin dropping them to 15th, but moved back up to eighth after stage four, but then on the long Speech House test they caught and passed the Focus WRC of Peter Elkins, only to sustain a front wheel puncture for the final seven miles arriving at the finish line on the rim loosing well over a minute, but a good time on the final test in Serridge saw them finish ninth overall, second in class and best FODMC crew.

One of the drives of the day came from Cinderford's Nigel Drew and Pauline Nash in the Kettle Civils/ Calico Interiors/ NPD Plant Subaru Impreza.

This was Drew's first event for more than 18 months and first rally with Pauline. He got off to hairy start in the opening test when in what Nigel described as 'one huge moment' these two settled down to climb the leaderboard with each stage to finish 13th overall, second in class, with Pauline also taking two lady co-driver awards.

"I am over the moon, apart from the first stage when I thought our day would end on top of a log pile, but we've had a great day, Pauline's been spot on," said Drew.

"I'd also like to thank my service crew – Jim, Mark and Daniel as well."

Rory Hall and Will Rogers took 16th and fourth in class in the GJM Subaru Impreza, Will who's just recovering from an operation found it somewhat uncomfortable in the co-driver's seat.

1400 front runners Darren Pinchen and Karen Jenkins in the Gibsons-backed Proton Satria finished 24th and third 1400 home but couldn't catch the flying Ford Ka of Matt Smith and the Corsa of Dave Bennett,but a good start to the campaign given the crews lack of match practice.

Ross-on-Wye duo Roger Matthews and Paul Morris continued there early season good form, with 25th overall, fifth in class and first post historic home after a trouble free run in the RJ Matthews Transport Escort RS1600.

Hot on their heels were Simon Tysoe and Wyedean veteran Cliffy Simmons in a similar car, these two seemed to struggle in the morning, but a suspension change at service improved things and saw them finish 29th, sixth historic and second post historic home.

Just two places behind were Martyn Walby with daughter Kirsty on the notes on her first event.

Martyn was doing his first event for three years in a borrowed Escort RS1800 which had been freshly built by Martyn and his mechanic Wayne Walker, the Calico Interiors/ McBro backed car never missed a beat, despite Kirsty feeling unwell all day.

The real reason these two were there was to raise money for the supportcharlie.org charity, and finished 31st overall, seventh historic home.

Another Ross duo Dan Gray with new co-driver Matt Rogers on board in the IM Gray Plumbing 1400 Peugeot 106 took 35th and 6th 1400 home.

Yet another Ross crew – the father and daughter duo of Gary and Tiffany Bollands – in the GB Motor Services Subaru Impreza finished 43rd and 11th in class.

Simon Pickering with Colin Jenkins on board in the pinto engined Escort RS1600, had a terrific run, totally dominating the class all day only for a timing glitch which saw them drop to 49th overall and 2nd in class.

Paul Gunter with the experienced Den Golding alongside took 57th overall, 3rd in class in the BG Landrovers Escort RS.

Wyedean debutants Mike and Lee Truman in the ME Damsell & DM Edmunds Timber Haulage Subaru Impreza finished an impressive 67th and 15th in class.

"All I wanted to do is finish and I have achieved that," said the ever smiling Bream resident.

Steve Jenkins and Mark Vaughan started their BTRDA 1400 campaign with fourth in class and 70th overall in the DJ Vaughan Citroen Saxo.

Shawn Baldwin with new co-driver Simon Cox finished 87th, sixth in class in the Autofix Escort RS.

James Dunkley and Dan Sayce took 93rd and seventh in class in their Peugeot 106.

Those not fortunate to see the finish included the Vauxhall Nova of 1400 front runners Dan Evans and Tom Marrott, who after a mixed start really pushed on with a string of impressive times to lie inside top five 1400s only for the gearbox to break on the final test.

Nigel Jenkins with Kevin Watkins on board in the 16v Nova were another crew starting to make in roads on the leaderboard before clutch failure brought retirement.

Spectators favourite Eric Davis with Russell Joseph on the notes in the Dennis Motorsport Mini GT retired in Chepstow Park with no drive.

Eric's son Matthew was making his Wyedean debut as a driver together with Stuart Hart in the Roberts Plant Peugeot 1O6. They retired on Trellech with ignition pack problems after a good start.

Lydbrook's Sean Amos together with Ryan Taylor in the 1400 Fiesta sadly stopped on the final stage.

Rob Tuckwell and Phil Hall retired their VW Lupo with problems unknown.

In the Open class the Team Winner Garage duo of Bob Morgan and Ade Williams in the Skoda S2000 Evo and son Jason, who had a new co-driver in Karen Phelps in his Lancer Evo 6, had an event to forget, with the Skoda retiring with a fire on the opening stage, with Jason hitting some logs causing damage to the Lancer.

2WD front runners Mark Griffiths and Mike Jode were expected to go well in newly rebuilt Escort RS but retired after Sallowvallets with gearbox problems.

Some consolation came in the shape of the Rex Paddock award for the best prepared car from both Forest of Dean and Ross Motor Clubs.

Sadly for Ian and Cliff Davis they retired before stage one with a broken throttle cable in the Escort RS.

Of the 135 starters, 95 survived the slippery roads.

Clerk of the course Phil Turley and the organising team should be commended for the hard work in the weeks leading up to the event, given the horrific weather conditions, with people out clearing trees in the early hours of Saturday morning to give competitors an event.