A HEREFORDSHIRE Motor Club duo have been crowned class winners in the REIS MSA National Asphalt Rally Championship.

Darren and Sue Underwood also won the Millington Rear Wheel Drive Challenge within the series.

Although scheduled to be the penultimate round, the Mewla Rally, organised by Epynt Motor Club, concluded the championship as the final event at Otterburn was cancelled due to military manoeuvres.

A strong entry of 105 crews would leave the Royal Welsh Showground at Builth Wells, facing a testing 80 mile route on the asphalt roads of Epynt.

“We were in a strong place starting the rally, leading both the class and rear wheel drive category, but our main rivals were there and up for the challenge," said Sue.

"After doing the maths, we knew what we had to do to stay in front but it wasn’t going to be easy."

Driving their Crystal Images Awards Escort G3, the Herefordshire Motor Club team laid the gauntlet down on the opening loop of three stages.

"We had to be quick out of the starting blocks and we achieved that taking nine seconds off the class rival over just six miles," added Darren.

The pressure for class honours was eased when their main contender retired at service and this meant the pairing could concentrate on the Rear Wheel Drive Challenge.

With some low cloud and drizzle, the roads were a little greasy, but a good tyre choice enabled the Underwoods to continue their push.

After stage seven and with four stages remaining, the couple decided to ease their pace and as long as they stayed in contention with the BMW crew of Richard Felgate and Mark Mason, knew the points would give them the edge.

After leading the BMW for most of the day, they returned to Builth Wells 24 seconds behind but taking enough points to win the Challenge.

The self-prepared Escort G3 ran with no issues all day, a precautionary check on the rear differential being the only work the service crew had to do other than fuel and a spanner check. Their result of 22nd overall and 3rd in class on the Mewla Rally provided sufficient points to comfortably win Class B11 (up to 2.0 litre engine) and also the Millington RWD Challenge. From a registration of 60 drivers, Darren was classified 11th overall, while Sue finished 10th out of 42 registered co-drivers.

"We may have written a new history in this series," said Sue.

"I 2014 we won the Front Wheel Drive Challenge and won the 1600cc class, while now in 2015 we have won the Rear Wheel Drive Challenge and 2000cc class - we are quite sure such a feat has not been recorded before".

Other Herefordshire Motor Club members competing on The Mewla Rally saw Tim Phelps and Elwyn Manuel finish 42nd overall and 9th in Class in their Britpart Escort Mk 2, while Adam Wilks from Abergavenny was co-driving for Gethin Williams.

The Escort Mk II team had a few minor issues during the day, but they managed to finis 47th overall and 11th in class.

The Austin Mini crew of Mark Goulding and Andrew Leeburn returned to the finish 68th overall and 6th in class.