 Richard
Kershaw is the Goodyear MSA British Off Road Champion for the second
year running, following a season that took the competitors right round
the UK and took in some of Britain's most arduous terrain.
The series kicked off in April in Wales with a fast forestry event.
Radnor
Forest is better known for some of the World Rally Championship's most
respected stages, but with the addition of some of the forest's lesser
used
tracks and firebreaks the championship started with a real tough
event.
Richard Kershaw started the year as he meant to go on with a win,
despite
coming under immense pressure from new challengers such as Tim
Dilworth and
old stagers such as former champions Gordon Monaghan and Tim
Marsh. New boy
Tim Dilworth came second overall and the experienced Alec Lofthouse
third.
Andew West won the modified production category, despite rolling his
Land
Rover Discovery, in a weekend when two of his main rivals also
suffered
accidents. Nik Ward won the smaller of the two standard production
classes
despite himself rolling his Suzuki Vitara, when main rival Colin
Read's
Mitsubishi Shogun Pinin suffered a rare failure. In the other
production
class Glen McKeith took the honours in his new Goodyear backed Land
Rover
Defender TD5.
Round two moved the championship to MOD land in East Yorkshire near to
Driffield. The quarry like course incorporated tarmac roads, water and
frightening climbs, drops and jumps. Tim Marsh set the early pace, but
the
challenge from Gordon Monaghan failed when he destroyed the BMW M3
engine in his Monaghan BMW special. Tim Marsh's weekend
went downhill with various
mechanical problems forcing him to take a maximum stage time and knock
him
out of the running. Richard Kershaw set consistent times to bring him
the
win, once again from Dilworth and Lofthouse.
The reigning modified production champion Tony Walmsley won his class,
and Colin Read took the first of his dominant wins in the Mitsubishi
Shogun
Pinin finishing an astonishing eighth overall, beating many of the
specialised off road racing vehicles.
Scotland was host to round three in the beautiful Ochil Hills in
Perthshire.
Here the terrain was undulating open moorland with jumps and boggy
sections.
Fresh from an incredibly dominant win on the Scottish Hillrally (a
round of
the sister championship the Goodyear
National Hillrally Championship), Tim
Dilworth was more determined than ever to make his mark on the British
Off
Road series and make inroads into Kershaw's lead. Unfortunately his
challenge was halted by electronics gremlins which dropped him to the
back
of the field. A monumental fight back to fifth overall, kept Dilworth
in
the title race, but with some catching up to do.
 Colin
Read provided another giant killing performance in the diminutive
Mitsubishi Shogun Pinin and Andrew West re-established his position at
the
head of the Modified Production class.
The penultimate round moved the championship back to the other end
of the
country to Eridge Park near Tunbridge Wells in Kent. Fast open
grasslands
were the order of the day here, the speedy nature of the course giving
the
production classes an opportunity to shine. Tim Dilworth came to the
South
East with yet more determination and stamped his authority on the
event,
proving that he is one of the fastest people in off road motorsport.
Richard Kershaw as consistent as ever followed Tim to a strong second
and
the spectacular Ryan Cooke was third. Andrew West came fifth and Colin
Read
won his class with another phenomenal result at sixth overall.
The dramatic final round was held at the end of October near Ellesmere
in
Shropshire. Tim Dilworth's only chance of championship success was to
win
outright and for Richard Kershaw to have a bad run. Dilworth set off
like a
man possessed and sprinted to a substantial lead by the end of the
first
day. But merely laps before the end Tim's final challenge fell apart
and
left Richard Kershaw to wrap up his year much as he had started it
with a
win. First Tim broke a propshaft on his Simmbugghini and then on the
following lap rolled the car losing much valuable time. His efforts
were
enough to reward him with second, though.
 Despite
winning his class at four of the five rounds Mitsubishi's Colin Read
couldn't overhaul the consistently high scoring Nik Ward and his
Suzuki
Vitara after Colin's retiral from round one.
Andrew West (Discovery) won the modified production category ahead of
last year's winner Tony Walmsley (Defender 90) and Glen McKeith sealed
the second production category with his Defender 90.
Throughout the year the competitors have taken the challenge to a
variety
of terrains and along each step of the way have been supported by
Goodyear's
Wrangler MT/R. The tyre is common to all competitors in the
championship
and has excelled in all terrains, from the bogs of Scotland, to the
gravel
tracks in Wales and the open grass lands in the South East.
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