ABERGAVENNY based entrepreneur Damian Cole wrote his name into the pages of rallying history when he won his fifth consecutive REIS MSA National Tarmacadam Championship last Sunday. Cole is the only driver in the history of the championship to achieve this accolade. He led the Ford Parts-ALM Engineerting Cheviot Keith Knox Rally from start to finish, setting eight fastest times on the nine special stages on the Otterburn Military Ranges in Northumberland.

Co-driven by James Morgan from Aberdare, their Ford Focus WRC beat second placed Simon Mauger and Ashley Trimble in a Ford Escort Mk 2 by 59 seconds with John Stone and Matthew Whattam in a Skoda Fabia WRC (third) just over two minutes behind Cole.

The Wales Rally GB has its ceremonial start this evening (Thursday) from Colwyn Bay at 7pm.

The final round of this year's World Rally Championship has attracted the biggest entry for several years with 72 cars entered in the main event.

A National rally running alongside the main event has an entry of 88 cars. This event is where the clubmen can be found tackling stages the same as the top world crews.

Local interest in this catagory is in teacher Paul Spooner from Raglan, co-driving for Steve Perez in the iconic Lancia Stratos - this car is one of the most interesting entered in the whole event. On Friday (tomorrow), four special stages are used twice by the WRC crews and once by the Nationals.

Probably the most spectator friendly is Sweet Lamb near Llangurig. Saturday sees the rally a little further north with nine stages in the Clocaenog forest area. Another six stages in North Wales on Sunday sees the rally finish at Deeside about 5pm. Further information can be found at http://www.walesrallygb.com">www.walesrallygb.com