By Paul Evans

Damian Cole will drive his Get Connected Ford Focus WRC05, in which he won five consecutive Asphalt Rally Championship titles, for the first time since 2015 when he contests this Sunday’s Ford Parts Cheviot Stages Rally.

The Abergavenny driver will be seeded at car number one on the final round on the 2018 Protyre MSA Asphalt Rally Championship, having won the event last year in his Fiesta WRC.

The six-time Asphalt champion has an impressive record in the Focus – winning 24 events outright, six of them on the Otterburn Military Ranges in Northumberland, where the Cheviot Rally is held.

As the event is a relatively last minute addition to his programme, his regular Wrexham-based co-driver Jamie Edwards is unavailable. Instead, Cole will be partnered by Wales Rally GB National winning co-driver Jane Nicol.

“We’ve not had the sort of season we were hoping for in the Asphalt Championship this year with the Fiesta WRC, so maybe the solution to our problems has been sitting under a dust sheet in the corner of the garage all this time,” said Cole.

“The Focus WRC05 is a fantastic car and we’ve enjoyed a lot of success with it in the past. I know Otterburn fairly well and have won the Cheviot Rally up there four times, three of these in the Focus. We’ll test the car this week and see what we can do on the event on Sunday. It would be nice to win one more rally to get the Focus’ total up to twenty five, but I’m expecting very strong opposition from the cars lined up behind us.”