Official rally reports of rally driver Ryan Champion

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8/9/07/05 Jim Clark International Rally - Mitsubishi Ralliart Evo Challenge Round 5

RYAN TAKES CHAMPIONSHIP LEAD

Ryan Champion and co driver Craig Thorley now lead the Mitsubishi Ralliart Evolution Challenge following victory on Round five of the series, the Jim Clark Memorial Rally, over the weekend.

The thirty year old North Yorkshire driver finished the event with a comfortable margin over second place Evo runner Colin Greer, but the results had shown a very different leaderboard only a few stages before the finish.

Champion said, " It was a tough rally. We expected to have quite a battle with the other top Mitsubishi crews but it was more eventful than any of us could imagine! From a championship point of view it was important for us to finish, but I still wanted to try and win."

Very early on in the event, two of Champion's main Evo rivals, Nik Elsmore and Stuart Jones fell by the wayside with engine problems. That left Ryan fighting it out with his other main series rival Phil Morrow.

"We had a good battle with Phil early on but he was going very quickly and with my other two main rivals retiring, Craig and I decided it wasn't worth taking too many chances. Phil continue to push hard so we thought it was better to keep at our pace without taking risks knowing it was a long event. He had built up about a thirty second lead on us when we had a heavy landing over a jump and broke the rear suspension. That also caused us to lose the brakes which was interesting!" Ryan commented.

The problem cost Champion three minutes and seemingly any chance of a good result. But amazingly at the same time, third place runner Neil McCance retired with transmission problems and on the very next stage Morrow retired with head gasket failure. Thorley said "We couldn't believe it. The MSR Motorsport team did a great job to get our car in perfect order again in the twenty minutes they had, then we saw Phil parked up on the road side. It's a shame for him because he drove very well, but I guess we've had bad luck in the past too.
Champion now leads the series into the next round, the Swansea Bay Rally on July 23rd. Again the competition is sure to be tense as Morrow, Jones and Elsmore try to catch Champion in the series standings, with that coveted Mitsubishi factory team drive awaiting the winner.