Shane McGirr took his newly-built Lada to seventh overall and first two-wheel drive car at the Grizedale Stages Rally on Saturday.

The Fivemiletown driver along with co-driver Denver Rafferty, dominated their class, winning three of the four stages to claim a dominant class win in the Cumbria-based forestry event.

The rally was held over 43 miles of classic gravel stages with the first test of the rally in darkness, but McGirr was immediately at the top of the two-wheel drive time sheets, and he was never headed.

His times seemed to be a surprise to the organisers who had seeded him at a lowly 55, but even Shane admitted he was not expecting to be so competitive in a car he is still getting accustomed to.

“It was surprising, given it was our first outing in it, but the car feels great,” he said.

“I don’t like the night stages. I used to love it, but I struggled in the dark and I didn’t feel happy when we got to the end of it, but we had a cracking time on it.

“I don’t know how! We were leading on the night stage and then fastest on almost every stage. We thought we had a puncture on one stage and we lost maybe ten seconds before we realised we hadn’t, and there was one stage we dropped a few seconds with an overshoot, but we were fastest on the rest.”

It was only Shane’s second time out in his newly-built car, but the blue Lada quickly became the talk of the spectators with its distinctive two-litre Honda engine and McGirr’s sideways style capturing the imagination of the Cumbrian rally fans.

“People are looking to see something different than an Escort in rear-wheel drive, and something that can compete against them,” reckons Shane.

“It’s hard to get something to be competitive against them, and in rallying terms it is like trying to reinvent the wheel because it is almost impossible, but we are coming close.

“I was using Grizedale more as a test, as it was that car’s first proper rally. We did the Bushwacker, but we only got half of it, and I didn’t really get a proper test as we broke the suspension, so we were really using it as a test.

“It seems to be a wee bit more sideways and sometimes you can forget about the back to coming through, but it is going well so far.”

Ladas were commonplace on the rallying scene decades ago before being superseded by cars such as the rear wheel drive Escort, but Shane always had a yearning to bring the iconic car back into the limelight.

He teamed up with car preparation expert Bobby Sharkey, and their efforts are finally coming to fruition.

“I used to work in Derrygonnelly Autos 30 years ago and Kevin Farrell and Niall always had Ladas, and they used to rally Ladas, and I have had a fascination with them ever since,” he explained.

“They were so ugly, they were nice! I always wanted to build one, and I bought this one years ago to do it, but never got round to it.

“I took the bull by the horns three years ago and said it was going to happen because I had done my days of racing the likes of Frank Kelly.

“I had had my fun, and I wanted to go for it, and if it works then great, but if it doesn’t, it doesn’t.

“So far, it seems to be competitive, but I’m a bit surprised at that.”

The promising performance of the car at the Grizedale event means we are likely to see and hear more of the blue Lada next season, with the possibility of some overseas events thrown in with local rallies.

“I haven’t thought much about next year, but I wouldn’t mind doing a few foreign rallies,” Shane revealed.

“We did Lithuania twice back in 2017 and 2018 and they are looking us to go back and do the Lada challenge, so we may look at doing a few of those events.”