Reigning British Rally champion Guy Wilks got his title defence off to the perfect start on Saturday, by taking the maximum points on the Pirelli International Rally.
The Mitsubishi man dominated the event, the opening round of the 2008 Tesco 99 Octane MSA British Rally Championship, just like he did last year, topping the times in his Evo IX on all but two of the stages.
Indeed in the end his run to P1 was pretty much trouble-free, his only real complaint he had to run first on the road and sweep away the loose gravel. He eventually won by just over a minute.
Juho Hanninen meanwhile took the runners-up spot on his debut in the Carlisle, after a fine showing. The Finn finished with a flourish too and was only 2.9 seconds off Wilks in the final stage, the 8.89 kilometre-run through Pundershaw 2.
David Higgins rounded out the top three on his maiden outing in his FX Motor Sports-run Impreza N14. The TQ.com-backed star, who has an exclusive column on
Crash.net, was consistently on the pace and spent much of the event fine-tuning his new car to get it to his liking.
Further down the order, Phillip Morrow and Patrik Flodin came in fourth and fifth, while Stuart Jones was sixth in his MG S2000 Sport, after taking it cautiously in order to re-build his confidence.
There were a number of retirees, with Mark Higgins the biggest casualty when he suffered a blown engine in SS10. Simon Jean-Joseph also went out in his Citroen C2-R2 MAX, as did Barry Clark.
For the full result
click here.
