A PUNISHING course brought problems galore for both Cumbrian drivers who tackled the opening round of the Matador British Off Road Championship, at Baden Hall, near Stoke-on-Trent.

Tym Chadbourne, from Windermere, and Peter King, from Penrith, set out to take on the best in the country over six laps of a 4.5-mile course.

With the cars in number order, Chadbourne followed King and they both posted the same time on the opening lap.

King then pulled back some time from his Cumbrian rival, but 50 metres from the finish ran wide on a corner and hit trees, which resulted in a puncture and bodywork damage to the passenger side.

With the wheel changed, King posted an improved time on lap three, but marshals then ran towards the car with fire extinguishers.

"I hit the kill switch and we were out of the car expecting a fire in the engine" said King, "We were losing fuel from under the car at an alarming rate, but this ceased after the pumps were stopped by the kill switch."

The problem was traced to a transmission part, which failed and split the fuel return line, bring an early end to Saturday's racing for King in his Mattsertti. With parts loaned from other competitors, repairs were made in time for Sunday's racing.

Chadbourne, meanwhile, posted some very good times and was second in the 3.5-litre class. At the end of lap three Chadbourne returned to the service area with his car steaming from a damaged radiator. This was soon fixed and with eight seconds to make up for first in class he pushed hard on run five and almost made up the time, but along the way picked up bodywork damage after hitting a tree.

On the final run he limped back to service with his Bowler Tomcat stuck in second gear, and the time lost on the final run dropped him to fourth in class. The team removed the gearbox, but the damage was terminal and Chadbourne was forced to retire.

Having missed three runs on day one, King had to complete all of day two to gain any points. The first three runs passed without incident and final two runs were fast, but with the three max times for the runs missed on day one King finished a lowly 15th in class.

Round two will be held at Ellesmere on the June 2 and 3.