HUSBAND and wife duo Nigel and Karen Jenkins made the trip to the Lake District for the final gravel rally of the year for the Copper Mines Grizedale Stages, back after three years, writes Paul Willetts.

After an excellent year securing the BTRDA 1400S class championship Nigel had chance of winning his class on the English championship again battling his rival Peter Gorst who was now on his local event.

Regarded as one of the best events on the UK rallying calendar, its short sharp format offers 42 miles in one of the most difficult forests in the world – Grizedale with its technical nature with blind crests and firebreaks has a fearsome reputation.

The format saw a return of a short 5 mile Grizedale East stage run on Friday night which hasn’t been used since the RAC in 1992.

But disaster struck within the opening mile of the first stage when the NJ Autos Vauxhall Nova went into limp mode they then had to pull over, the problem was a snapped cable to the ignition – the plug was chopped off, the wires stripped back, reconnected and taped.

The car burst into life although they endured a stage maximum they got to the stage finish although they languished down in 82nd place and sixth in class overnight.

Saturday dawned with two more tests in the main Grizedale complex with 8.15 miles opener followed by a 9.40 miler in stage three.

The car now fully repaired, they set about climbing the leader board as rival Pete Gorst was well in charge of the class lead.

Apart from a huge moment on stage two a clean run through stage three brought them to the mammoth 19 miler final test a combination of stages two and three.

Karen had to belt out 33 pages of notes, but they had a terrific run even taking 19 seconds out of Gorst .

A fine run over the Saturday stages allowed them to work their way up to 48th overall and second in class behind Gorst – so it was time to get the calculator out to see who had won the English championship E2 class, and it was Jenkins courtesy of the 2nd in class pipped Gorst by a single point making the trip very worthwhile.

A delighted Karen said: “We got off to the worst possible start Friday night but we knew if we could keep going and if anything happened to Pete then we could pick up the pieces, but it wasn’t until we got to the finish with second in class we realised Nige had won the class by a point .”

“He has driven so well this year and not put a scratch on the car, its been a very enjoyable year had some great battles with Pete and Mark so a huge thanks to everyone who has helped this year.”

The pair would like to thank Dave Troughton and Luke Watts for servicing on the event.

Despite only starting both BTRDA and English championships mid way through the season, the quiet unassuming Coleford motor engineer certainly took it to them in the second half of the season and his all attack style has brought its just rewards ably guided by his wife who is one of the best lady co-drivers in the UK some well deserved silverware will be collected at the championship dinners.