JOHN Stone and co-driver Lee Carter got their 2008 rally season off to a flying start with victory on last weekend's Specsavers Christmas Stages.

The rally, based at the Croft Race Track near Darlington, attracted a capacity 90 car entry providing Stone and his Legend Fires Metro 6R4 with some stiff competition.

The Blackburn businessman completed the first stage in second place trailing the Subaru Impreza of Kevin Proctor and Dave Bellerby by a solitary second. Stone then turned the tables on his rival on stage two taking over at the head of the standings with Proctor now a second behind.

It was all change again after stage three as Stone slipped back into second place behind the new rally leader David Bogie. And Bogie was quickest again on stage four leaving Stone ten seconds in arrears.

Then, on the first of the afternoon's stages, Stone thought any hope of a top finish had gone when the Metro's engine suddenly cut out.

Their luck was in though as midway through the stage the heaven's had opened, and by some strange quirk of fate the torrential rain had had an odd effect on the stage time clocks, resulting in the cancellation of the stage.

This left Stone still ten seconds behind Bogie, with only three stages remaining.

The torrential rain had left large areas of track covered in standing water and that proved to be Bogie's undoing as he aquaplaned into the trackside Armco with the resultant damage enforcing his retirement.

This left Stone with a lead of almost half a minute ahead of the Metro 6R4 of Chris Wise and Tracey Taylor-West.

With only two stages remaining Stone and Carter could afford to back off and finish the day in pole position 24 seconds ahead of runners-up Alex Taylor and Stuart Leighton in the Impreza with Wise and Taylor-West a further second behind in third.

Stone said "We're just relieved to get a win under our belts! We were helped by Bogie's incident but that's our first win since July 2006 and hopefully we'll get a few more in the not too distant future."