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Model Car World Agbo Stages 2008 Sian Tidley / Hywel Tidley A short report  on our latest event, round one of The Web Benefit Heart of England Championship. Well we  were all up at around 3.30am to get to Weston Park for Scrutineering  at our allocated time of 6.00am! The "Milkman" shift came around all too early on Sunday morning especially as Hywel was suffering from a bad head cold and Ben and Callum ( service ) had been out until 3.00am on a night out in Leicester! We had a trouble free run from Lutterworth up to Telford and once having dropped off the trailer went to scrutineering at our allocated time of  very early o'clock! . Once through noise and scrutineering we proceeded to signing on and then a very welcome cuppa back in service. Our start time was 8.15 am and for the first few stages Hywel was about as much use in the co drivers seat as a sack of spuds!. Anyway we had a good run on the first few stages learning the general layout of the venue and getting to know the technical sections where previous cars had thrown lots of mud onto the road, making conditions very tricky, especially where the sun had yet to dry off the surface. Also as Matador have now stopped Motorsport tyre production ( We  had recently done a cracking deal with the importer!! sods law as usual) we had to make a last minute change in tyre supplier. After much searching around we settled on using some TOYO tyres for the first few events of 2008. The tyres proved really good once Sian has got confident with them and our stage times in the afternoon got better and better. Unfortunately because we drove cautiously during the morning stages we lost a good deal of time to our fellow class runners and at one point had dropped to 67th o/a. However with some good runs in the afternoon , Hywel feeling better as the paracetamol kicked in we finished a somewhat disappointing 58th o/a . From a shakedown point of view the day was a success as we have now got confidence in the new tyres and feel that they are better than the Matadors we used to run and not far behind the Dunlops that we have used a couple of time (Dunlops ar considerd the premium moulded slick but at over £130 per corner out of reach of most clubmen budgets!) Big thank you to the organisers, marshals and of course our crew , looking forward to our next run out at MIRA. ( Horiba D'Isis stages) on 12th April. New engine end of March , 165bhp 1600cc running full group A spec including Webbers and fully mapable engine managment so we should be really flying at MIRA! Regards Sian,Hywel and the crew at RDR Next event MIRA on April 12th , then a "biggy" The Welsh on May 4th at Epynt, Mid Wales. Sian, Hywel and all the RED DRAGION RALLYING CREW. Report presented by Hywel Tidley. Pictures by Rally Action Photography