Chris Armstrong has won the two wheel drive championship on the Triton Irish National Rally Championship.

The fiercely contested trophy came down to a final event shoot out between former Brookeborough man Armstrong and Darrian driver Stuart Darcy, and after the latter retired Chris only had to bring his Escort to the finish line to clinch the trophy.

Going into the Donegal Harvest Rally Chris trailed Stuart in the championship standings, with the Darrian driver needing a fourth place finish to be sure of taking the title.

With two stages remaining Chris’ title hopes were fading. Despite lying second in his class, the Darrian was on course to score enough points to pip his rival to the top spot. That all changed on the penultimate stage of a wet and tricky rally, with the Darrian sliding off the road to seemingly hand Chris the championship.

However, Chris had to survive a late scare before being crowned champion.

“Once Stuart was gone we just had to finish,” explained Chris. “We were second in the class and then the half shaft broke on the last stage. If I had to stop he would have won the championship but we managed to crawl through it. I was beating him before he crashed but there was no one else registered for points between us, so he would have won it only he crashed. It was a challenging event.”

In addition to the two wheel driver trophy, Chris also claimed the MK2 trophy for the season’s top Escort driver, but he admitted he should have wrapped up both titles earlier without the need for the final stage drama.

“We really should have won the championship earlier because were leading every round and kept making mistakes that were costing us,” he admitted.

“I was leading in Mayo and caught a fella and got held up behind him and finished second to Darcy. In Kerry I was leading and I overshot two junctions on one stage and dropped 40 seconds to him. Then I crashed in Cavan.”

Chris overcame the setbacks however, and although he slipped from second in class to sixth with his late mechanical problems in Donegal, he secured enough points to end the campaign as a double title winner.