Paul Rowlands and Neil Lloyd survived a dramatic Motorsport UK British Cross Country Championship (BXCC) final weekend to take the title by just one point from Aston Cox and Simon Kerfoot.

Walters Arena in Wales was the venue for the final two rounds of the championship and, going into the event, multiple crews were in with a chance of lifting the trophy.

Richard Watson and Paul Hughes headed the leaderboard after round four but their victory hopes ended on the first run of round five when clutch problems on their Milner Evoque resulted in a stage maximum.

Phill Bayliss and Lance Murfin were in second place before Walters but several punctures blighted their round five. They still took a class win but finished well down the results on round five before salvaging 10^th overall, and another class win, on round six.

The remaining championship hopefuls were going well on round five although it was Andy Degiulio, contesting his first BXCC event of the year, who was leading early on. Degiulio’s Milner R5 went off the road on the third run which gave Yorkshire Hill Rally winner Richard Kershaw the lead. Kershaw and co-driver Andy Powell set the fastest time of round five on their third run but retired their Lofthouse during the fifth run.

Kershaw’s retirement should’ve put Paul Rowlands into prime position to wrap up the title but his event also ended on run five, the steering quickener on his Can-Am Maverick X3 breaking. As misfortune hit some of his rivals it looked like Cox, who had survived almost rolling his Rivet, was on course for the round five win but the drama was not over yet. On the final run of the day he had a puncture early in the stage. He was able to get to the finish, with the car running on its trailing arm as it crossed the finishing line, but he’d lost around four minutes which dropped him to fourth place.

Cox maintained his lead all through round six although a hard-charging Andy Degiulio took three fastest run times to finish just three seconds behind in second. Cox’s victory wasn’t quite enough to give him the BXCC title though. Paul Rowlands kept up the pace he has shown all year to finish third in round six which gave him the championship by a solitary point, a dramatic end to an exciting season!

Rowlands commented, “It’s been a good championship,

“We should’ve wrapped it up on Saturday really but the steering quickener issue meant we couldn’t go any further. That was sorted for round six though and we did enough to take the title. Fair play to Aston though, it was extremely close and it’s been a great battle.”