North-West rally driver Steve Maguire and Hobart navigator Stuart Benson have won their first Tasmanian Rally Championship with an outright victory in the fourth and final round, the Table Cape Tavern Hellyer Rally on Saturday.
Competing in a Mitsubishi Lamcer Evo 9, the pair won five of the six stages in the event to clinch the title. Defending champions Bodie Reading and Mark Young, of Hobart, retired at the half-way service break with differential problems in their Subaru WRX Sti, with Spreyton’s Tim Auty and Callan Randall finished second in a Mazda 323 GTR, with Kurt Wyllie and Jobe Sims making it a Coastal trifecta in their Subaru.
Further down the field, Wynyard son and father combination Jacob and Adrian Walsh won the two-wheel-drive category in a Mazda RX-7, finishing a creditable seventh outright to also claim their first state championship.
