Former Welsh champion Dylan Davies finished second overall at the WKD Trained Dogs Rally North Wales at the end of March.

Organised by Wolverhampton and South Staffordshire Motor Club the Dolgellau-based took place in the iconic stages of the Dyfi and Pantperthog forestry complexes.

This event was the opening round of the Welsh Forestry Rally Championship, with a competitive mileage of some 44 miles.

Davies this year entered with an R5 specification Skoda Fabia guided around the forestry tracks by Mark Glennerster.

They were seeded at 403, which was third four wheel drive car (all four wheel drive vehicles were given a number starting with 4.

He and Mark were looking for a strong result for points in the championship.

The day was made up of four stages repeated to total eight. The first two were Pantperthog and Dyfi, followed by Big Ray and Gartheiniog.

On the opening stage of the day Dylan and Mark set an excellent second fastest time (4 minutes and 10 seconds), which was only one second off the quickest time.

On Dyfi they were second again, this time they were five seconds down, but held second overall with only two seconds separating them and the event leaders.

It was very much the same story for stage three, with Dylan and Mark showing some excellent consistency in their performance and stage times.

Once again they were second quickest, with a time of six minutes and 19 seconds over the Big Ray stage.

On the final stage of the first loop Dylan and Mark went one better and set the fastest time outright, with five minutes and 24 seconds over Gartheiniog 1; they were now only one second off the overall lead.

There followed a service halt back in Dolgellau and the dusty conditions increased tyre wear making conditions trickier.

However this didn’t seem to worry Dylan and Mark too much as on the first stage of the afternoons loop they again were second overall, the gap between them and the event leader lay at five seconds.

It was a similar story on the second loop of Dyfi as they again were only four seconds off the fastest time with six minutes and six seconds.

For Big Ray 2 it was very much business as usual with yet again the second quickest time, Dylan and Mark showing the sort of consistency that led to championship wins.

The final stage of the day was Gartheiniog 2. Here once again Dylan and Mark achieved a second fastest time, which was five minutes and 37 seconds.

They went on to finish in an excellent second overall, gaining a handful of points in the forestry championship in the process.

The next round of the championship is the Rallynuts stages on 9 April.