Awards Night

The 2013 Welsh Sports & Saloon Car Championship annual awards night, held this year at the Hilton Newport Hotel on Saturday 23^rd November, was the usual glittering occasion! The Awards were arranged by Alan Jenkins, announced by Rhodri Jenkins and presented the Alvin Powell the WRDA Chairman, and were of the usual high standard. (Thanks are due to Sue Davies & Sonia Williams for arranging the raffle which bought in a welcome amount to help with the trophies costs and thanks to all those whop donated the prizes!) There were 49 people present to see the Class awards, Special awards and Overall winner presented with their awards.

2013 was a typically hard fought contest, the kind for which the Welsh Championship has become renowned. Going into the final rounds 5 people were in contention but Chris Morris was leading the points table, and he did enough in race 1 to ensure he had one hand on the Championship trophy. Mike Edgell emerged as the strongest contender, but after Roger Dowden pinched the point for the fastest lap from Mike in race 2, this left Chris as the undisputed Champion by 1 point from Mike Edgell with Mike Cond in 3rd! In the classes,  it was equally as tight and in Class CS  Jason Davies started the last race in the lead of the class, but when he was unable to finish the race due to brake problems, this left Neil Watts to sweep by to win the class and Andy Williams to take 2^nd in class, to push Jason back to 3rd!

Keith White could have been in with a shout of the championship, but a lack of numbers in his class put paid to his chances, although he won more races than anybody else in 2013! However after careful thought the committee proposed that in future there would be an award for the driver winning the most races in a season.  However it was decided to make Keith the inaugural winner of the trophy, which came as a nice surprise to him! Also receiving awards were Mellissa Lufferelli as Best Lady and  Paul Flinders as the Best Newcomer. Roger Dowden received the Chwarae Teg award on behalf of The University of Wales Trinity St David to say thanks for letting us use their display unit as our race-day centre.

19 years old Matt Parry from Cardiff was given the WRDA Welsh Young Driver of the Year Award for his efforts in winning the Formula Renault North European Cup, winning several races beating grids of over 40 cars! Matt has come up from Karting to win the Intersteps in 2012 and is part of the Caterham F1 Academy and the MSA Academy which has a former winner Andy Meyrick as one of the instructors and Matt, along with the 2011 Young Driver award winner Seb Morris, is one of the drivers in contention for the 2013 Autosport Mclaren Award.