PUNCTURES not performance separated the winners from the losers on the Granite City Rally.

The Aberdeen-based event, second round of the Mintex National Championship, lived up to its reputation as one of the toughest on the calendar, and saw three East Lancashire crews battling for a share of the points in the group N category.

But the rocky stages took their toll on the cars, with two competitors - Daniel Harper and Ian Grindrod - left deflated by the tyre damage.

Harper, from Barley, near Nelson, looked set for victory in class N3 after a storming drive in his new Powerzone of Padiham-backed Vauxhall Astra GSi.

After a steady start on the opening stages, Harper and co-driver Les Reger, from Burnley, stretched their lead over class leader Peter Thornton to half a minute until disaster struck on stage nine.

"We got a puncture in the stage and suddenly went from being 30 seconds up, to 30 seconds down," he explained.

"So Stage 10 became a do-or-die mission to try and pull the time back. It started really well until we hit a rock two miles in, and had to stop and change it. "Les and I got the wheel off, but the jack sank into the soft ground. By the time we found a rock to balance the jack on, and then changed the tyre, we'd lost eight minutes - and any hope of victory.

"I was so fired up when we got back in the car, we did our fastest time of the whole event!"

The pair had to settle for third in class N3 and 50th overall.

After suffering a final stage engine failure on the opening Mintex round in Bournemouth, Copster Green navigator Ian Grindrod and Dubliner Richie Holfeld were intent on claiming group N for themselves.

A brand new engine from Ralliart Germany - installed in their Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 5 last week - powered them up into the top three of the 'showroom category' with just three stages to go.

But a puncture wrecked any hope of victory and the delay plummeted them down the leaderboard to 21st overall and 10th in class.

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