Joe is dust about there!

Joe Cruttenden and Matt Griffin

Last weekend saw Newhey based co-driver, Joe Cruttenden, guide Matt Griffin, from Blackburn, to the British Trails and Rally Drivers Association 1400 L class championship. The pair finished the Ludlow based, Woodpecker Rally, second in class, giving Matt enough points to clinch the title.

"We only had to finish this rally for Matt to win the class title, so we drove steadily during most of the event, but I did notice he started speeding on the last couple of stages, so I had to reel him back a bit, said Joe."

He added: "The only problem we had was when the car started to lose power on the 4th stage, at one point we were having to go down the gears to keep the car moving. Luckily our service crew from Rallyschool.co.uk managed to solve the problem by clean the air filter out that had become packed with dust due to the nature of the stages."

The pair finished the rally behind another Rochdale crew of Steve Brown and Paul Stringer in their Nissan Micra.

Although Matt won the championship, Joe just missed out on clinching the co-driver championship, and therefore will have to compete in the last round in October.

Joe has had a busy past few weeks, having just come back from the Ulster International rally, in Northern Ireland, where he achieved two 2nd places in his class.

Joe is hoping to keep the run of success going, as he travels to Belgium this weekend, to compete in the Tour of Flanders Rally in a round of the British Historic Championship.