Penrith rally driver Paul Bird saw his hopes of victory on the Trackrod Rally Yorkshire National event evaporate when a broken driveshaft cost him time on SS3 of today’s event.

Driving the VK backed Stobart Subaru WRC, Bird and co-driver Andy Richardson from Kirkby Stephen were making their comeback to the forests for the first time since March on the Pickering based event and after a good run through the opening stages in Dalby Forest, Bird was hoping to close the ten second gap between himself and chief rival Steve Perez.

However half way through the seven mile Gale Rigg stage Bird slid wide into a ditch which cost him some time, but in extracting the Subaru he broke a driveshaft which meant he had to contest the remainder of that stage and the following high speed test in Cropton with transmission problems.

The TEGsport team rectified the situation in service but the two minutes time loss proved too much for Bird to claw back on the final three stages and as a result he had to settle for second place behind Perez.

Paul Bird:  “I’m not too disappointed given I felt very rusty today.  It’s the first rally I’ve done since May and my first time on gravel since the Border Counties in March so it was always going to be a tough challenge.  We had a bit of an off which cost us about a minute and then breaking the driveshaft cost us another minute by which time Steve had disappeared off into the distance.

“I’m not too unhappy to finish second to Steve, I’m more concerned that it’s my turn to buy the champagne yet again!”