Cinderford co-driver Will Rogers will embark on his biggest season of rallying so far, writes Paul Willetts, when he joins the new re-vamped British Rally Championship after a two year absence with the Mid-Wales Stages based in Newtown Powys.

The new styled Championship has really caught the imagination of crews with some of finest British drivers competing against some tough European drivers in all classes, the series all caters for non-homologated cars.

The weekend will see a very high quality entry of 75 crews do battle on round one in the fabulous Welsh forests of Hafren, Myherin,and Tarenig complex, offering some 110km of action and starting with two stages on Saturday night.

The 26-year-old will team up with the highly-rated North Walian Matt Edwards in the Swift Caravans/D-Mack Tyres backed Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 9, looking to win the production class but also get among the front runners in the R5 cars.

The championship will take them from the forests of Mid Wales to the tarmac of the Circuit of Ireland, where the British championship regulars will mix with top crews from the FIA European Championship. The series then moves back to gravel, with a trip to the notorious ’Killer Keilder’; the countries biggest man-made forest, for the Carlisle based Pirelli Rally.

The hard abrasive forests of the Scottish Rally is next on the agenda, before a return to Wales for the Nicky Grist Stages. The Builth Wells event offers day one on the gravel, with day two mileage on the tarmac of the notorious Epynt ranges.

The final two events are proper classics with Ulster and Rally Isle of Man.

“It’s great to see the series back,” said Rogers.

“We need this as a stepping stone to the WRC, but it’s going to be a tough year against all the top class drivers in the R5 category.

“We nearly did a deal to have a R5 Fiesta but it didn’t come together, so we decided to go with the Evo.

"What we lose against the lighter and more nimble R5 cars, we gain more top end speed with the Evo, and we’ll try to get amongst these guys. It’s great to be competing against the likes of Elfyn Evans, Max Vatanen, Fredrik Ahlin and David Bogie plus a host more. I hope its going to be an exciting year for us.”

The other local co-driver is Ross based Paul Morris. The veteran map man is no stranger to the series down the years and he teams up with multiple British tarmac championship Damian Cole.

The Abergavenny businessman switches from his Fiesta WRC to a Fiesta S2000 for the series. Cole is another who as competed on the British Championship before and returns to support the new series.