by Geoff Mayes


Reigning British Rally champion Mark Higgins battled through the treacherous conditions on the Ulster International Rally - the latest round of the 2007 Tesco 99 Octane MSA British Rally Championship, to take both the rally victory - his second of the year - and the overall championship lead.

The Subaru pilot had been praying for showers as he felt it would help him close the gap to the works Mitsubishis of Guy Wilks and Gwyndaf Evans - and in the end it rained sporadically all weekend, making tyre choice a real lottery.

Wilks was stunning through the opening stage, just over 3 seconds quicker than his team-mate, while Higgins was three seconds further back.

Guy was hoping to extend his advantage on the second stage but when screws worked themselves loose in the throttle body he lost all boost and plummeted down the leader-board. Although Wilks won this stage Evans now moved into the lead as the crews headed back to Armagh for two runs around the super special.

Evans won both of these and by service was almost 4 seconds ahead of Higgins. A flying Phillip Morrow was up to third, revelling in the tricky conditions whilst David Higgins, in the Toyota S2000, was fourth, despite complaining about the set-up.

With his car restored to full health, Wilks topped the times again on the first of the two night stages as he pushed to make up time.

He then admitted to over driving in the final night stage, dropping time to both Evans and Higgins, who returned to the overnight rest halt separated by just over 11 seconds, advantage to the Welshman - despite him complaining about not being able to see properly in the dark.

Both Wilks and David Higgins were early casualties on Saturday morning, retiring with mechanical failures.

At the head of the field Higgins was taking the fight to Evans. Quickest by over 8 seconds on the opening stage, Higgins then topped the times again on the next stage - this time though his closest challenger was Phillip Morrow. Evans was nearly 35 seconds slower, hampered by a broken driveshaft.

Morrow pushed a bit too hard on the first stage after service, crashing into a bank and damaging the intercooler. Despite minimal time loss the young Irishman was rather concerned about damage to his car.

Evans, with a new differential fitted, was quickest, but was now exactly 30 seconds behind Higgins with six stages to go.