Official rally reports of rally driver Ryan Champion

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Tesco 99 Octane MSA British Rally Championship Round 1 Pirelli Rally – 13th & 14th May 2006

Champion beats the Champions!

Castleton driver Ryan Champion scored the best result of his career this weekend when he won round one of the Tesco 99 Octane MSA British Rally Championship, this weekend’s Pirelli International Rally.
Together with his co-driver Craig Thorley, Champion beat seven-former British Rally Champions in what was the his maiden outing for the Mitsubishi Motors UK team – his works drive the prize for winning last year’s Evolution Challenge.
With the new-look BRC seeing WRC cars excluded, all of the leading drivers were in similar specification Production Class machinery, so the competition was destined to be fierce.

Starting and finishing in Carlisle, the rally comprised 114 miles of gravel surface roads, mainly in the infamous Kielder Forest, the event split into 10 special stages on Saturday and a further six on Sunday.
Mitsubishi were fastest off the blocks, with Ryan in second place just 0.4 seconds behind his recently recruited team-mate David Higgins.
However, it was a different story for his other team-mate Rory Galligan who slid wide just two miles into the first stage, dropping his car into a ditch and out of the rally.
Somewhat shocked to find himself in third place, current British Rally Champion and David’s brother, Mark Higgins, upped his game for stage two and edged his Subaru into the lead, his challenge helped when his brother’s car developed transmission problems.

After four stages and at the first service halt of the day, Ryan still held second place, but team-mate Higgins had dropped to fifth, the team deciding to change his car’s front differential in the 20 minute stop. Frustratingly the job over-ran by five minutes and Higgins was subsequently penalised with a 50 second penalty, pushing him down to 11th place.
Two stages later it was Ryan’s turn for misfortune, when suddenly he found he had no clutch. Although he could drive through the stage without time loss, leaving the start line was a problem and he dropped to third behind another former British Champion, Gwyndaf Evans in a Mitsubishi.
Ryan held on to third place for the rest of the day and, although the team had fixed his clutch, damage had been done to fifth gear and the team elected to change the gearbox at the first service halt on Sunday morning.
Evans suffered similar problems to those of the Mitsubishi team’s when his Lancer needed a new clutch and he too collected penalties for leaving the service area late, resulting in Ryan re-taking second place behind Mark Higgins on Sunday morning.
Then on SS12, the second of Sunday’s stages, the Subaru driver collected two punctures and suddenly Ryan was in the lead. Now with victory in his sights he not only maintained his lead, but extended it - even when the sump guard parted company with his car on SS13!
Amazingly Ryan recorded fastest times on stages 14 and 15, without a sump guard! After an impressive display of fast and controlled driving he crossed the line 12.8 seconds ahead of Mark Higgins and 20.6 seconds in front of Gwyndaf Evans in third.
“I just can\'t believe it, the first event as a Mitsubishi works driver and I’ve won it!” Said a very happy Ryan at the finish. “Although we had a few problems, so did others, but when everything was going well and it came down to a straight fight between them and us, we came out on top. I have to admit that I’m thrilled to beat so many good drivers and former champions. It’s a dream start to the season.”

General Manager for Mitsubishi Ralliart, Paul Brigden, was also delighted with the performance: “To win the first round of the season is a fantastic result. It’s testimony to Ryan and Craig’s skills inside the car and the rest of the team’s outside it. We came to the Pirelli looking for a win and we fulfilled our intentions. I was pleased with the performance of our cars against the opposition and we can now look forward to rest of the season with eager anticipation.” Ryan and Craig now lead the British Rally Championship and look forward to the asphalt surface of round two, the Jim Clark Rally on 7th & 8th July.
Pirelli International Rally – 13th & 14th May 2006 Overall Results 1st Ryan Champion/Craig Thorley (Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX) - 1:45:37.8 2nd Mark Higgins/Rory Kennedy (Subaru Impreza) - 1:45:50.6 3rd Gwyndaf Evans/Huw Lewis (Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX) - 1:45:58.4 4th David Higgins/Ieua Thomas (Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX) - 1:46:56.6 5th Jonny Milner/Nicky Beech (Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX) - 1:47:16.6 6th Phillip Morrow/Daniel Barritt (Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX) - 1:47.30.1 7th Alistair McRae/Gordon Noble (Subaru Impreza) - 1:48:38.1 8th Julian Reynolds/Stewart Merry (Subaru Impreza) - 1:48:55.6 9th Stuart Jones/Craig Parrry (Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX) - 1:49:08.1 10th Conrad Rautenbach/David Senior (Subaru Impreza) - 1:49:15.9