HAMPSHIRE-based rally co-driver Alyson Marlow has teamed up with top Canadian driver Pat Richard to contest one of the country's toughest championships - the Peugeot 206 Super Cup.

Fareham-based Alyson is no stranger to rallying having competed at the highest levels for the past ten years and says she's delighted to have teamed up with Pat for the 2002 season.

"The British rallying scene is totally new for Pat who is a Subaru driver in Canada and used to driving powerful four-wheel-drive machinery,'' said Alyson.

"This year he has a steep learning curve getting used to two-wheel-drive, right-hand-drive and adjusting to the pacenote system we use to guide drivers around stages,'' she said.

In Canada Pat drives all rallies "blind" and says that coming to the UK will give him the opportunity to learn more about rallying and the British system used everywhere but in North America and Canada.

The pair competed in their first events at the weekend - two back-to-back rallies based in the Kielder Forest complex close to Newcastle.

There were mixed fortunes for the crew who are up against more than 20 drivers in identical machinery.

A broken fuel pump thwarted their efforts on the first of the weekend's rallies but with that repaired they were able to restart for the second day and were delighted to finish sixth overall - a remarkable achievement with so much new to the driver.

The stages in Kielder are known as some of the toughest in the UK with narrow tracks edged with large ditches but Pat said he was happy with the pace of the new car.

"Some of the corners were really slippERy and I thought we had a problem with the 206 at one point but other drivers said the same and it was just down to the conditions out there,'' said Pat. Heavy rain and rutted tracks also added to the challenge.

"It's just good to get back to the ramp,'' said Alyson. "I don't think we could have expected to have finished any higher in our first event - the pace at the front is frantic.''