RALLY crew Josh Payton and Jamie Vaughan continued their recent domination at Down Ampney with a hard-fought victory on last weekend’s Get it Sideways Stages organised by Cheltenham Motor Club.

The club received over 120 entries for the 70 available places offering 10 tests totalling some 45 miles - sadly due to the venue curfew the final stage was cancelled.

The Escort mounted crew were quick out the blocks leading after stage two although they found the opening two tests extremely slippery in the dry and dusty conditions.

By the start of stage seven they had built a comfortable 21 second lead from the Corsa S1600 of Neil Weaver, but this was all to change, when two spins and an overshoot due to the tyres going off, this saw the duo lose all of their advantage, and going into the final two tests they were dead level with their challengers.

But a big push on the final two stages saw them victorious by 27 seconds in the end.

They will now turn their attention to the MSN Rally Championship for round two at Snetterton and hope to take the momentum from this weekend’s victory.

Hereford youngster Dan Petrie teamed up with Steffan Evans in a new 2.5 Escort RS1800, with the former road rally driver was poorly seeded at 33.

A steady start was on the cards with it being Evans’ first time in his new car, but despite a few half spins they were just inside the top-10 after two stages.

They then started to push hard with three equal fastest times, but sadly suffered badly from nominal times when two stages were cancelled due to accidents.

The cancellations cost them from challenging for the runners-up spot.

But they were well pleased with fourth overall and first in class.

“We’ve had a cracking day, that is some car, and Stef is some pilot,” said Dan.

“It’s a real shame about the cancelled stages, but we will be back here in a few weeks for the Corinuim Stages so we’ll have another good push.”

A man usually found in the driving seat Ross-on-Wye youngster Dan Evans was again in the co-driving seat of Richard Jordan 1400 MG ZR.

The pair always go well at Down Ampney, and this weekend was no different with a fine seventh overall first in class after a trouble free run in the Ian Evans Motorsport prepared car.

Due to the slippery nature of the first two stages the duo held an impressive third place despite a wrong tyre choice.

However, as a clean line emerged the powerful cars pulled away, but the duo took yet another class victory by one minute and 44 seconds.

“The car was perfect and ran really well,” said Evans.

Ross on Wye duo Martin Taylor and Steve Suckling took 30th overall and sixth in class.