THE Lenches father-and-daughter team of Alan and Ruth Robinson won the Targa-Pyrenees endurance rally outright amidst the Catalan uprising.

After numerous attempts resulting in class and team wins and second and third overall, the duo finally made it onto the top step of the podium.

“It is a tough event," said Ruth who has navigated over the years for Alan.

"It’s enough pressure with a Lotus Exige with 100 more horsepower breathing down your neck for four 10-hour days without Catalan roadblocks just when you don’t need it."

The clerk of the course was given problems with competition cars and course marshals stranded either side of the border.

Television reports of street violence and riots ahead on the course made for potentially tricky situations.

“We had to turn tail and make it look like we were heading back into France," said Alan.

"Then we would wriggle off around the back of a town to try to get in a back way only to meet a digger across the road with a bunch of farmers draped in the national flag.

"In the end the clerk of the course had to void most of the stages on the second day."

The rally started off in close fashion with crews dropping points and time penalties in the first morning with heavy rain leaving the high mountain single track and B roads running in mud.

Finland's Vinnie Barriskel and Jukka Karjalainen were doing well until a broken wheel dropped them out of contention on the first morning.

By the end of day one, the Lotus team of Martyn Hayward and Warren Vessey were equal on points with Dirk Meert and Inez Jacquemyn from Luxembourg along with the Robinsons and Francie Clarkson and Claire Owen.

Day two looked tight but after the Robinsons cleared the first three stages with no time penalties the Catalan border reared its head and the whole day turned into chaos.

Day three and four ran like clockwork with most of the front runners keeping a clean sheet but for Clarkson and Owen who lost time due to a blown fuse which took out the wipers among other things.

By the final stages it was still tight but on countback top spot went to the Robinsons in their trusty old Ginetta by a mere few seconds from Meert and Jacquemyn in second and Hayward and Vessey in third.