HALFWAY through Kirkby Lonsdale Motor Club's ProPrep Rally Championship, Chris Taylor remains the man to catch, Taylor has led after every round so far, scoring points in both his Escort Cosworth and the forest-spec Astra.

The Penrith-based driver banked the maximum haul on Saturday again on the Proflex Stages aided by 2003 winning co-driver Ed Dentice.

The event uses the Leyland Bus Testing facility and there were a couple of problems to test Taylor's nerve, including a fire on the final stage, luckily just past the stop line!

Kendal's Jim MacDiarmid/ Bob Milloy took the second-place points in in their Peugeot 106.

The seventh round of the ProPrep Series, the Pendragon Stages supported by WA Developments, is fixed for Sunday, August 29. The route is still to be finalised but details will soon be available on www.klmc.org.uk.

Welsh challenge for Wright team THIS weekend sees the Grove Hill Garages Rally Team travel to Builth Wells, mid Wales for the fourth round of the Kumho National Rally Championship, the Mutiny National Rally.

After contesting several rounds of the Peugeot 206 Super Cup in 2002, Dave Wright and Mike Panes moved on to a 4x4 car and spent 2003 preparing a Subaru Impreza.

Last time the Bentham team were out on the Roush Manx Rally a couple of weeks ago, they finished fifth overall and won class N for showroom spec cars.

The crew is currently in 24th place overall in the series and 15th in the Production Cup, with both events having at least 35 registered competitors of which at least nine are using WRC machinery.

The series id being lead by Roger Duckworth who is 11 points ahead of Steve Perez in Subaru Impreza WRC and A Focus WRC respectively.

Appleby's Dougi Hall/Steve Egglestone take their newly-aquired Focus WRC to Wales recently to contest the second round of the British Rally Championship.

Running in Stobart colours along with Matthew Wilson, Dougi was up to third place before loosing his was when caught in the dust of the previous car on the third stage.

The Stobart supported Focus managed to make its way back into 14th place at the end of the event , setting several top ten times on the way.