WESTBURY driver Peter Elkins got back to winning form with an overall victory at the Regency Stages at the weekend – after a three-month lay-off for a broken bone in his wrist.

In his Ford Focus World Cup rally car Elkins, partnered by co-driver Andrew Joll, set seven fastest times on the 10-stage, two-day event at Shepton Mallet to take overall honours by 12 seconds.

Elkins, who suffered a compound fracture to his wrist after clipping a bank in the Malcolm Wilson stages event in Cumbria when driving an Escort earlier in the year, said: “We should have won by over a minute but a lost a lot of time on one stage when we stalled the car.

“We started the second part of the tarmac rally over 50 seconds down and thankfully everything went right for us to regain the lead.”

The driver, who runs Elkins Ford, the main Ford agents at Westbury Leigh, is competing in a left-hand drive four-wheel drive 300bhp WCR Ford Focus that came from M sport, the company that builds the Ford Works cars.

He added: “We have used the two tarmac events to get used to the car.

Now we plan to change the suspension set up to suit stages consisting of mainly gravel to contest a national championship.’’ Elkins will contest the British Trials and Rally Drivers Association national series next season.