03.12.2008

After a nail-biting season - the closest I can ever remember - which went right to the final round, we have our Champion Driver in David Bogie and, for the Codrivers, it's Martin Brady who takes the title.

David won the opening round and then went on to score two more wins on the Severn Valley and Swansea rallies, whilst Martin had no choice but to jump ship half-way through the season in order to keep his championship hopes on track.

Right from the word go everyone could see how close it was going to be, with almost the whole top ten swapping times on the Rallye Sunseeker. In fact, there were no less than seven different winners out of the events 14 stages.

The competition hardly let up all season and we ended up with four different winners from the championships seven rounds.

As we all now know, the championship came down to the final round. All David had to do was finish fifth or higher, but when he exited the first of the events five stages with a solid brake pedal and over a minutes deficit - which put him in seventh place - his quest became all the more difficult.

Keith Cronin set the pace early on and led the Mitsubishi field by an impressive 46 seconds, but slipped off the road on the third stage. This put David into sixth and, with Jon Sparks slowed by a leaking head gasket, he edged his way into the all-important fifth spot by the end of stage three.

Nik Elsmore did all he could to keep up his chances by recording his first victory of the season, but a calculated final two stages by David was enough to see him finish fifth and on exactly the same number of points as Nik. David therefore becomes champion by virtue of the tie-break rule, having won the opening round.