Motorsport: The eagerly anticipated battle for the 2009 Pirelli MSA Gravel Rally Championship got underway last weekend when crews from all over the UK converged on the seaside resort of Bournemouth for the annual ANCRO season opener as the 24th annual Rallye Sunseeker burst into life.

The first leg of the event, on Friday evening, was curtailed following an accident on the opening stage along the seafront in Bournemouth.

A competitor left the road, felling a lamp post in the process.

The crew suffered minor injuries and the driver had to be extricated from the car, but it was the exposed electricity cables that rendered the stage unusable.

Andy Drummond from Chippenham also ended his rally by going off this stage and hitting a lamp post and railings.

A dry sunny morning greeted competitors as they set off from Canford Arena for the second leg and, apart from being required to treat a spectator with a suspected heart attack on the penultimate stage, the rally emergency services had a very quiet day!… SHELLY TAUNT/JULIE MURPHY, from Swindon, were the highest-placed Ladies crew to finish, bringing their Subaru Impreza home to a Top 20 finish, Mixed fortunes for the local Land Rover crews, with Andy Drummond and Jon Chester from Chippenham a favourite with the crowd crashed his Discovery into iron railings on the Friday night stage....both crew were OK.

Keith Thomas and Ian Anderson from Calne had a great rally finishing a very creditable 32nd o/a considering the quality of the entry and in his Discovery.

Other local crew to finish were Rob Harford and Jon Broughton from Chippenham in their Freelander 47th o/a and Barry Ellison and Gary Adams from Swindon 38th o/a Doctors Simon Dowdeswell Kieron Bhargava from Lyneham in their Freelander were a creditable 29th o/a