THIS Saturday (November 9) will see the beautiful Forest of Dean reverberate to the sound of rally cars once again, after the postponement of last year’s Wyedean Stages event.

Hard work and dedication from a new organising team have ensured this year’s rally goes ahead.

The Winner Garage Wyedean Stages in association with KGD Services will see nearly 90 cars leave the Vantage Point complex at Mitcheldean on Saturday morning for six special stages and 42 miles of competition.

The first block of cars include Category 1/2 historics and up to 1400cc cars seeded in reverse order, followed by the rest of the field in performance seeded order.

There are some fantastic old historic cars, with the Volvos of Bill Douglas and the event’s associate sponsor Ken Davis of KGD in his Amazon, while former Wyedean winner Ian Beveridge brings his Toyota Corolla TE 27, and Andy Stokes, who did the first ever Wyedean in 1975, his BDA Mk 1 Escort

One of the first local drivers out is young Luke Watts on his first gravel rally in the NJ Auto Repairs/Ian Watts and Son 1.0 Toyota Yaris, ably guided by Colin Jenkins.

Luke’s grandfather Phillip Turley was the Wyedean clerk of the course for 40 years.

Also in this block will be the first husband and wife combination James/Kelly Dunkley in the Vauxhall Corsa, and the Dennis Motorsport Mini GT of Eric Davis and Russ Joseph.

But the battle for overall honours in this section is expected to be between BTRDA 1400 front runners Steve Black with Ross Motor Club’s Paul Morris on the notes in the Suzuki Swift 1400 S and husband and wife team Nigel and Karen Jenkins in the NJ Auto Repairs/ME Damsell 16v Nova.

The Skoda Fabia R5 of Iain Bainbridge will lead the open field away, but Welsh championship protagonists Russ Thompson and Matthew Hirst in a pair of Lancer Evo 9,s, will push hard.

Martin and Dawn England in their Fiesta R5 always go well, with wily veteran Sam Middleton not to be discounted in the unique Mitsubishi Mirage R5.

One crew to keep an eye on is the Subaru Impreza of Chris Powell and Jim Lewis, their first event in a 4wd car.

In the 2wd battle which has a host of top historic crews using the event as an RAC Rally shakedown, Nick Elliott is the top seeded 2wd at car 5, but the flying Sunbeam of Andy Davison, with youngster Tom Llewellin in the Escort RS1800 will also challenge,

And not forgetting local crews Ben Friend/Cliffy Simmons in the Allglass Escort RS1800, Mark Griffiths/Matt Rogers in the Griffiths Engineering Escort RS, Alex Allingham/Ross Weir in a new Dave Jenkins Motorsport built RS1800, Tim Freeman /Paul Williams in the Escort RS1800, and Jason Gardner/Mike Jode in the RS1800.

Spectator are asked to use rally car parks and obey marshalls’ instructions.

Wyedean Stages spokesman Paul Willetts said: “The rally has attracted a good quality entry and a varied array of cars, but we ask people to be sensible where they watch the event from.

“Motorsport UK are now not only big on event safety these days, but also for people to be respectful to the officials and marshals; if they are being asked to move, etc. We want people to enjoy the event but stay safe.”

Full event details are at www.wyedeanstages.co. uk