Stage Six of the Pirelli International Rally, the opening round of the 2004 Kwik Fit Pirelli British Rally Championship featured the "Richard Burns Rally" stage and saw Alistair Ginley again set the pace, closely followed by David Higgins while Paul Bird and Jonny Milner almost dead heated for third quickest time, Barry Johnson and Steve Perez continuing to push the front runners. Aki Teiskonen really pushed his Saxo over the 11 miler, more normally known as The Bower, to be 10 th quickest on the stage, while the other Super 1600's of Alessandro Broccoli and Simon Hughes were close behind in 11 th and 12 th spots.

David Higgins kept his long time lead of the event, a minute up on Ginley with Bird, Perez, Johnson, Ling ( Who maintained his Production class advantage despite brake fade) and Mathew Wilson all in extremely close order, just over a minute covering this leading bunch. The Super 1600 battle was proving to be equally close with Broccoli hanging on despite his Fiat Punto having an exhaust problem but with no margin for error, his lead a mere 18 seconds over Clark, and Teiskonen and Gareth Jones closing in. simon Hughes slowed in the stage and was caught by Olly Marshall, the young Welshman's Clio stopped on the following road section and the problem looked to be terminal.

Johnie Wigmore lost time, running with a bent hub following his excursion on a previous stage but was hoping to rectify the problem at Hexham service while Jennie Lee Hermansson was another driver desperate to reach service after giving the front nearside wheel an extremely hard knock in the stage. Steven Petch was still battling with gear selection problems, Shaun Wooffinden hadn't managed to trace a persistent misfire while Tom Metcalfe dropped to the back of the field with a bent axle beam.