PAUL Buckel and Steve Butler had one of those ‘if only’ nights when they contested the Y Rali Gogledd in North Wales.

The Accrington-based pair are regular contenders in the ANWCC Road Rally Championship, and were looking to repeat their top 20 finish on the same event last year.

“It was a classic tale of what could have been,” explained Paul, who drives a self-prepared Proton Compact.

“We knew we would steadily lose time as you really need to know the roads in Wales, so we concentrated on getting the junctions right and have no wrong slots.

“It was all going to plan until regularity four, where we entered a very complex series of whites which were very well marked out with arrows.

“We started to climb a very steep section and were struggling to get up due to the muddy nature of the road.

“I was confident that we were going to get up – until we got to the steepest part and the engine died!

“Blocking the road, we had to back down and pull over to have a look under the bonnet.

“We found that the air induction pipe had worked loose and popped off. We refitted it but were then faced with getting up the hill from a standing start, which we managed.

“All this cost us nearly 16 minutes. We had to cut to petrol so not to go over the time limit at the main time control, which incurred us 13 fails!

“Now it’s the big ‘if only’ time. Looking at the results, if we had not lost 16 minutes in the first half and then another four minutes in the second half, I estimate we’d have been on course to match last year’s result.”