tourbridge resident Richard Sykes proved the doubters wrong with a commanding drive and made it two in a row with consecutive wins in the British Rally Challenge.

One of the pre-event favourites Des Campbell, who actually lives on one of the roads used competitively, was to be Richards nearest rival and after catching and passing three crews on the opening 16-mile stage it was obvious Richard wasn't there to make the numbers up.

The Scottish Borders-based event took part on 100 miles of the fastest tarmac rallying stages this country has to offer and Sykes followed up his impressive start to the season, with top four times on every stage.

After taking the lead from stage one, when the crews returned back to service for the morning halt Richard, partnered again by regular co-driver Simon Taylor, had amassed an 18 second lead over their nearest rivals.

Sykes said: "We were planning a measured approach having never used the car on tarmac previously, and things started very well, we arrived back in service to find we had a comfortable lead over our nearest championship contender and we have driven well within our capabilities.

"So our approach for the rest of the day was going to be of a similar vein."

Amongst the afternoon stages is the infamous stage of Langton where there is a small river crossing that is very popular with the spectators and television crews, Richard didn't disappoint the awaiting fans with a faultless drive which not only kept him at the top of the Challenge leaderboard but also kept him in the overall lead of the rally. Another return to service required yet again no attention on the car, so a quick oil and water check and the crew were sent back out for the final loop of stages.

This included two especially tricky stages Ayton and Edrom, a repeat of stages they had covered in the morning, with a comfortable lead in the challenge there was no need to push on the final three stages, meanwhile local driver Des Campbell had been recovering lost time and only four seconds separated the crews in the overall rally as they left service.

This meant the pressure was still on and Ayton proved to be the decisive stage.

Sykes added: "We were hoping not only to win the challenge round for maximum points but to also win the rally outright, Des has been taking small amounts of time back over the previous few stages apart from the second run through Ayton, we actually demolished a road sign in there with the front end of the car but were still five seconds quicker. But it wasn't to be enough; on the following stage through Eyemouth I got caught out on a tight corner and went off into a field.

"We only lost about 14 seconds but it was enough for Des to take the outright win.

"To be honest we never expected to be in that position in the first place looking at the other entrants, some of them actually live or work on the roads we were using but to lose out at such a late stage is disappointing.

"We now have a commanding lead in the championship and need to keep the momentum up on the following events."

Sykes will be looking at increasing his lead in the championship when the Challenge visits Nuneaton for the Rally of the Midlands at the end of June.