THE Network Q British rally gets underway this week with a local man, Allan Whittaker of Horwich, in the co-driver's seat of a privately entered Subaru Impreza.

Here he tells NEIL BONNAR of his hopes and aims for himself and driver, Peter Stephenson

LOCAL rally driver Allan Whittaker will mix it with the world's best this week in the Network Q rally.

The experienced Horwich man will co-drive for Yorkshire multi-millionaire Peter Stephenson against the likes of world champion Marcus Gronholm, last year's champion Richard Burns and former champion Colin McRae in the final rally of the FIA World Championship.

The 1,023-mile, four-day event is nothing new to 49-year-old Allan who has competed in Britain's biggest rally 10 times before.

He considers the sport a hobby but he also makes his living from it indirectly as he has a company in Radcliffe, Motor Drive Seats, which supplies a lot of the rally seats in Great Britain and throughout the world.

He will be stepping into the unknown to a degree, however, when he slots himself into the passenger seat for the start of the race on Thursday as it will be the first time the pair have competed in their brand new Subaru Impreza.

"Peter is a multi-millionaire and he has just gone out and spent £350,000 on this car just for this race," said Allan of Mallard Drive.

"The fact we have not had much time with the car could be a bit of a problem but it is a better car and we're hoping to improve on last year's finish."

As amateur drivers Allan and Peter are at a distinct disadvantage to the big works cars driven by the likes of McRae and Burns. But they have high hopes of figuring near the front of the 90 cars.

"Twelve months ago we finished 25th out of 120," added Allan. "We were unlucky because we were up to 12th when we had gearbox problems.

"Lady luck has to be on your side and if she is it can make a big difference. You are always going to have problems but you hope they are only small problems.

"Finishing 25th last year wasn't a bad result considering all the works teams taking part. A privateer cannot expect to finish much higher than that but we are going into this year's race hoping to improve on that result, partly because we have a much better car."

Allan has been rallying for 29 years and has co-driven for a number of drivers all over the world. But he says the British rally is special.

"It's a one-off," he says. "I've rallied all over Europe and as far away as the Middle East and Iceland but it is still special to compete in your home event even if it is affectionately known as the Swansea rally because it is based down in South Wales."