HARTLEPOOL’S Gavin Lee clinched the Northern Saloon and Sports Car Championship last weekend at Darlington and District Motor Club’s championship event, held at Croft Circuit near Darlington.

After round ten of the championship at Knockhill, Lee was leading the title race but Darlington businessman David Cox was close enough in the points race to snatch glory at the final two rounds at Croft.

The two Seat Leon Cupras of Stirling’s Andrew Morrison and Whickham driver Simon Blanckley were on the front row of the grid, but it was the Mitsubishi of Simon Deaton that got the best start, closely followed by the MG Metro 6R4 of Middlesbrough’s Ken Hall.

Unfortunately, as Hall crossed the line for the start of lap two, his engine blew up leaving oil on the circuit at the approach to Clervaux.

Further down the leaderboard an extremely close battle was developing between the two championship hopefuls Lee and Cox.

Last year’s champion, Paul Moss, from Darlington, and Hartlepool’s Darren Flounders were also in there.

Cox slowly managed to pull away from the group and took sixth position overall at the chequered flag with less than a second separating the Class D front runners, Moss, Lee and Flounders.

With eighth overall and second in class, that gave Lee enough points to claim the 2008 championship title.

In the final round of the season, it was Simon Blanckley who lead the field on the first lap but, when the race was red flagged and the competitors made their way back to the grid for the restart, some confusion meant that Blanckley entered the pit lane instead of heading for the grid which meant that he would have to start at the rear of the field.

At the restart it was Stocksfield driver Stephen Ferguson who took the lead into the first corner, but then proceeded to pull off the circuit at the second corner with mechanical problems. This left the door open for York’s Michael Cutt to take the lead, but by lap two Andrew Morrison had pulled ahead and maintained the lead to the flag with Cutt in second.

David Cox looked like he would grab the final position on the podium but the charging Blanckley had made his way back up the field and just pipped Cox for third at the last corner.

It was a weekend to forget for Darlington’s Terry Wright, in his first race of the weekend on Saturday the engine on his Rover Metro died as he left the start line. The fault was traced to an electrical control unit which was able to be repaired overnight so that he could take the grid for Sunday’s race.

But as early as the second corner, contact between Wright and David Swales’ Ford Fiesta saw Wright’s ETS Motorsport Metro spin off into the tyres at Hawthorne – leaving no choice for the marshals other than to red flag the race.

● Hamsterley driver Stephen Petch Junior and co-driver Michael Wilkinson, from Tow Law, made the short journey to Pickering for the Trackrod Rally Yorkshirein their SGP Motorsport Hyundai Accent WRC.

After overcoming minor gearbox problems and a time-consuming spin, the pair claimed a solid haul of points in the 2008 Pirelli MSA Gravel Rally Championship after finishing fourth in class.

Considering he had not competed since the Swansea Bay Rally in July and having fitted a ‘paddle shift’ gear change to his Hyundai, which took some time adapting to, Petch finished the opening stage, Housedale, fifth fastest.

A spin and the consequent stalling of the engine on the second stage proved pretty time consuming, but when Stephen slid into a chicane in Cropton and could not engage reverse, another minute was lost along with any hopes of a podium finish.

The young County Durham rally driver was able to fight back up the order to eventually finish seventh overall and fourth in Class B13.

Also out and making one of his rare returns to the drivers’ seat was Stephen’s father and former national champion, Steve Petch in his Mitsubishi Evo IX.

Competing in the National Rally also, Steve and his Exelby co-driver John Richardson were enjoying a good run throughout the day until transmission problems stopped them on the very last stage. Up until that point, the pair were lying seventh in class and tenth overall.

Another crew contesting the Trackrod National Rally was Ingleton driver Tony Thompson in his Mitsubishi Evo IX with co driver Jon Dunning, of York.

Tony, who had not driven competitively since March, made good progress on the first two stages and lay fourth overall.

The pair suffered a full 360 degree spin on the third stage, costing them around 20 seconds and subsequently dropped down to the sixth place.

After completing two further stages, the pair finished sixth overall and third in class, to claim more valuable points for the ANCRO Championship.

Thirsk daughter and father team, Amanda and Derek Cornforth, were out once again in their 1400cc Ford Ka.

The car was only finished at 2am Saturday morning, but the pair fought throughout the day with the dry and dusty conditions, and finished the event in 15th place and a class win.

Competing in the Trackrod International Rally was Heighington driver Guy Wilks in his Mitsubishi Evo IX with his Irish co-driver David Moynihan. After setting a good pace on the first stage, Guy had already made a gap of nearly ten seconds between him and Mark Higgins.

Over the next nine stages, he had managed to achieve a lead of one and a half minutes over his fellow competitors. This would have meant that he would have claimed first overall, but after an investigation, he was excluded due to technical infringements with the car.