Builth Wells man Jason Pritchard and co-driver Phil Clarke scored a fourth Bet on Aces Manx National Rally title in five years on Saturday.
The pair led from the outset on Friday tea-time in their Ford Focus WRC, the opening leg held in some of most difficult conditions imaginable, with torrential rain and mist heading into the hours of darkness.
By the end of the evening, after eight tests, they had a lead of one minute 40 seconds over former Manx Rally champions Daniel Harper and Chris Campbell in a Mini WRC, from Lancashire.
By then, many of the leading crews had already faltered.
Last year’s winners Hugh Hunter and local co-driver Rob Fagg ground to a halt in stage one with electrical (ECU) problems on their Ford Fiesta WRC.
Jamie Jukes crashed his Mitsubishi Mirage R5 in the first mile of SS2, with expected leading locals Andrew Dudgeon and Joseph Dooley also going off in the same stage.
Multiple former National champion, Damian Cole, withdrew his Ford Fiesta WRC after SS6 when dropping more than five minutes simply by choosing the wrong tyre tread.
Saturday could not have been a greater contrast, glorious sunshine and dry roads throughout. Pritchard continued his errorless onslaught, fastest on 15 of the 16 stages to win by a margin of 3min 06.2sec from Harper.
Amidst the attrition, with seven of the top 10 seeded crews failing to finish, a surprise third place went to Wayne Sisson and Max Freeman in a Mitsubishi Evo X, who had a trouble-free run.
The leading local crew to finish was Kex Walker and Dannii Matthews, who were a superb ninth overall in a 30-year-old BMW 325.
Bet on Aces Manx National Rally, Manx Auto Sport (Friday/Saturday) - top 10 results: 1, Jason Pritchard/Phil Clarke (Ford Focus WRC) total time 1hr 45min 08.9sec; 2, Daniel Harper/Chris Campbell (Mini WRC) 1:48.15.1; 3, Wayne Sisson/Max Freeman (Mitsubishi Evo X) 1:53.50.2; 4, Paul Kirtley/David Jones (Subaru Impreza) 1:54.57.2; 5, Barry Groundwater/Neil Shanks (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X) 1:55.48.6; 6, Donnie MacDonald/Michael Hendry (Mitsubishi Evo IX) 1:57.11.9; 7, John Indri/Mathew Smalley (Mitsubishi Mirage) 1:57.59.2; 8, Richard Clews/Hamish Campbell (Subaru Impreza STi) 1:58.27.9; 9, Kex Walker/Dannii Matthews (BMW 325) 1:59.41.4; 10, Brian Watson/Caroline Will (Subaru WRC) 2:00.32.9.
Bird wins Chris
Kelly Memorial
Regular visitors Andy Bird and Plug Pulleyn (Vauxhall Chevette) won the accompanying National B Chris Kelly Memorial Rally.
They took the lead on SS7 on Friday evening after early leaders, locals Steve Ormond-Smith and Charlotte Shimmin (Evo VII) had an off-road excursion.
Fellow locals Sean Kelly and Kirsty Duke (Evo IX) also led, before losing time with a puncture and clutch problems, as did Chris Heyes/Rick Sutcliffe (BMW E30) until a broken suspension forced them out.
Neil Morgan and Shaun Hughes (Ford Escort) were runners-up, with Ormond-Smith/Shimmin recovering for third.
l A fuller report will appear in the Manx Independent.