Lady luck failed to shine on Matt Beebe at the Rally of the Midlands after he suffered a crash that could leave his season hopes in tatters.

Beebe rolled his car during special stage event of the competition when, approaching the end of the stage, a tyre popped on his MG ZR 160 and left the car to hit a gate post side on and roll twice before returning right way up. Fortunately, both Beebe and co-driver Phillip Prosser emerged from the crash uninjured.

The three times BRC rally champion had hoped to bounce back from a disappointing Jim Clark International last month, but unfortunately suffered problems from the outset. On the way to the first stage on Friday evening, Beebe was haunted once more by gearbox problems and had to have a replacement fitted later that night.

When he finally got rallying on Saturday morning all had looked bright, as Beebe was showing his true form to finish fourth fastest at the Merevale 3 stage. The optimism was short lived however, as on the very next run on the stage the accident occurred.

"We may now have to look at what rallies we are able to compete in for the rest of this year," he said. "The car had been up for sale to try to get some much needed funds to enable us to do the Ulster International a round of the British and Irish Rally Championships as we had had confirmation on Friday lunch time that the Irish drive with South West College was going ahead next year.

"This is a bitter blow to the team and all the hard work that has been done by everybody but it now looks as though Ulster for this year will be put on hold and we will have to miss it unless we can get some support/sponsorship.

"Finally thanks to Quadro Services, Freedomis, Queens Road Home Improvement Centre, Hankook, AVO Suspension and PIAA for all their support both past and present, to m3motorsport for getting us out on Saturday morning and for building a car that enabled us to walk away from it without injury after the roll."