Success for Lancaster racer in premier road rally around County Down

Local rally co-driver Phil Sandham crossed the Irish Sea to contest the Down Stages.

Besides being the concluding event in the Northern Ireland Rally Championship, this was the penultimate round of Britain's premier competition on roads, the BTRDA Tarmac Protyre Rally Championship.

Based in Banbridge, the rally consisted of eight stages covering 170 miles around County Down, all on public roads closed for the duration of the event.

It continued a busy month for Bolton-le-Sands-based Phil, having co-driven in the Pendragon Stages (England) and Grampian Stages (Scotland).

He answered a call from top Irish driver Richard O'None, whose regular co-driver had taken ill. They met the day before the rally, which they spent driving the course and taking notes.

A full entry of 120 cars included crews from all over the UK and Ireland, and Richard and Phil were seeded 43rd.

Their car was a Rally 3 Ford Fiesta, with a 1.5-litre turbo engine, producing around 240bhp, and four-wheel drive. It was an ex-works car, previously owned by another leading Irish driver, William Leighton.

The rally began on Saturday morning outside Banbridge's massive shopping centre, though an accident resulted in stage one being cancelled.

The rally began in earnest on the next stage and the duo needed a few bends to get to know each other.

The stages were very quick, with lots of loose gravel, and Richard had the misfortune to clip a rock. An inspection between stages revealed a big cut in the side wall.

The tyre was replaced at the final service break and Richard/Phil went into the last two stages eight seconds behind the leader.

Having reduced this gap marginally to seven going into the final stage, Richard drove the car to its absolute maximum to make up time. It was an outstanding effort but the pair missed out by 1.5 seconds.

However, they enjoyed quite a consolation prize by winning the Northern Ireland Championship for class four cars.

Phil was grateful for the experience and Richard kindly gave him a lift to Larne to catch the last ferry to Scotland.