AS the drive towards 2009 steps up a gear, looking back at 2008 in the rearview mirror, we can see that rally competitors from the Abergavenny area have had a mixed year of results.

Nicky Grist, long time co-driver to Colin McRae, entered the McRae Stages Rally co-driving for Hannu Mikkola.

Mikkola, one of the original flying fins was driving a Mk 2 Ford Escort built specially for the event by Mark Solloway.

The McRae Stages was ran in honour of the late Colin McRae and attracted a veritable who's who of the rallying world including Ari Vatanan, Bjorn Waldegaard, Andrew Cowan and many more.

This event was the rally of the year and Mikkola and Grist finished eighth overall out of the two wheel drive cars.

On The Roger Albert Clark Rally, Grist sat with Phil Collins from Pontrilas in an Opel Ascona 400.

The crew had a terrific time and although the event was peppered with mishaps and incidents, they were running as high as tenth overall and ninth in class when a roll on the nineteenth stage out of thirty one made it game over.

Grist was back to winning ways shortly afterwards when he partnered Mark Higgins in an ex- Carlos Sainz Subaru Impreza, to first overall on The Grizedale Stages Rally.

Damian Cole won Welsh Stage Rally Championship and was third overall in The Silverstone Competition Tyres British Trials and Rally Drivers Championship.

Cole was second overall last year and third the year before, and it seemed he was going to do the business this year.

A change of his usual suspension to Reiger may have cost Cole the title as he finished third on the last event of the series. However, Cole has been tipped the one to watch for next year.

Raglan resident Paul Spooner had a good year with rides with Michael O Brien and Peter Egerton. He won the Neath Valley Stages in a Ford Focus WRC with O Brien and The Trackrod Rally with Steve Perez in another Ford Focus WRC.

Spooner competed mainly with Peter Egerton in an Hyundai Accent WRC in the BTRDA Championship which netted him third Gold Star co-driver overall.

The icing on the cake was 19th overall on The Wales Rally GB again with Steve Perez in a Ford Focus WRC.

Wayne Bonsor from Blackrock and Richard Aston made a foray into the Dunlop/Gambia MSA Historic Rally Championship using a Ford Escort Mk 2 RS 2000.

Entering four of the eight rounds Bonsor finished 38th overall out of nearly one hundred competitors.

Aston was 35th co-driver. Other regular competitors were Craig Judd and Paul Todd in a Peugeot 205 GTI and Mike Williams and Phil Jones in a MG ZR.

Abergavenny Auto Club meet every Monday at The Neville Hall Social Club at 8pm, and all are guaranteed of a warm welcome.

The club intend to organise a championship of navigation events next year and also have a thriving motorcycle section.

The next event will be a Christmas motorcycle trial at Pandy farm, starting from 11am on Saturday, December 27.