Monmouth rally ace Richard McLachlan travelled to Aberystwyth for the Sweet Lamb Stages of this year's Peugeot Rally Championship.

The rally took place at the Sweet Lamb Motorsport complex, which provides tricky gravel tracks around the steep mountainside.

Hafron forest was also used where many an RAC rally has been run. After a stunning 3rd overall in August's Swansea Bay Rally, the McLachlan team had high hopes for Sweet Lambs Stages.

However, the day turned out to be a bittersweet experience; a slow start meant a lot of work had to be done to get back onto the leaderboard.

After the first four stages the team, sponsored by Cogent of Newport, was uncharacteristically running down in the middle of the 205s.

As the results of the first sector were posted Richard said "I just couldn't get into the flow of things this morning and now we've a real hill to climb to get back into the points".

However, events were set to conspire against the McLachlans as a puncture at the end of the next stage put the pressure on further.

With no service stop until after stage 8, the tyre had to be changed by the team on the road section to stage 6. Stage 7 went really well with good time being made at the start of the stage.

By the end however the brakes were becoming very unpredictable with the pedal going down to the floor.

Frantic checking and tightening of brake unions between stages 6 and 7 failed to fix the problem and stages 7 and 8 had to be handled with virtually no braking, however the clock showed that the team were significantly faster than earlier in the day!

A cracked brake reservoir bottle was diagnosed at the service halt, but without time to replace it a temporary repair had to be effected.

The last three stages went faultlessly for the team, with the good performance hauling them up the tables to finish a creditable 7th overall and to take the 3rd in expert class trophy.

The car died after the final time control and has since refused to start meaning a lot of time will be needed in the garage to prepare for the next event in Caerwent in less two weeks time!

The tyre problems will also mean a little more work for Paul Jarrold tyres of Monmouth who are also lending their assistance to the team.