For the second time this season, Kick Energy rally driver Steve Perez romped to victory on a BTRDA Championship event as after winning the North Humberside Forest Rally back in March, he added the Quinton Stages to his ever-increasing list at the weekend.
Driving the Ford Focus WRC, the Chesterfield driver was reunited with Irishman Stephen McAuley, with whom he had won last autumn's Trackrod National Rally, and the pair made a steady start on the Llandovery-based event which used some of the forests made famous by Wales Rally GB in recent years.
On the opening test in Halfway, Perez stopped the clocks just a second down on Will Nicholls' Subaru and dropped a couple more seconds on SS2 (Monument 1). However, on SS3, Perez hit the front by a single second but SS4 in Caeo was where the 2004 National Champion asserted his authority and he increased his lead to thirteen seconds.
Perez headed into the second loop of stages in confident mood and continued to set fastest times on the remaining three tests to end up some 39 seconds clear of runners up Damian Cole and Paul Morris at the finish.
"If I'd registered for this championship, I may have been in with a shout!" exclaimed Perez afterwards meaning Cole and Morris took maximum BTRDA points on the event. "After driving a 1975, 2 wheel drive car recently, the transition to a 2005, 4 wheel drive car suited me just fine.
"It's only the second time Stephen and I have competed together and we have won on both occasions so that's a good omen. I thoroughly enjoyed the event and thanks to the marshals and organisers."
Perez is next in action on the Swansea Bay Stages which forms round five of the 2008 MSA Pirelli Gravel Rally Championship on Saturday July 19.
![Steve Perez/Stephen McAuley - Ford Focus WRC 03. Quinton Stages 2008 [Pic credit: Simon Clarke - www.sc-photography.co.uk]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/463417.jpg)
