Plenderleith and co-driver Mel McMinn placed first in their 4WD class at the Bega Valley Rally and second outright in their Mitsubishi Evo 3.

That added to a podium in the series opener at Oberon and outright success in round two at Rosewood which kept Plenderleith in the overall lead.

“Jacquesy [Chris Jacques] is the closest to us in the point score and we finished ahead of him at all three rallies, so we should have a reasonable lead over him,” Plenderleith said.

“We are happy to be ahead of him, he’s in a much newer Evo [Evo 9] than us with a lot more power and a bit better suspension and bits and pieces.

“It’s nice to be able to stay ahead of those bit faster cars.”

Plenderleith said the standard of competition at Bega was good and it reflected in the final results. Ben Barker comfortably took the honours, but there was just two minutes, 10 seconds between the next five.

Barker won eight of the 10 stages for a time of 1:41.03, while runner-up Plenderleith (1:43.43) took out stage eight.

“Ben Barker was there and he used to be a works Toyota driver and he’s local and he’s got a quick BMW. He’s the one who got us, he was first outright,” Plenderleith, who was competing at Bega for the first time since 2003, said.

“There was not much between second, third, fourth and I think fifth was quite close as well. But Ben was a long way ahead of everyone, his local knowledge was unfortunately a bit much to overcome on a blind rally where you don’t get a great deal of information.”

Plenderleith went into the rally knowing he had to deal with front suspension issues, but the conditions challenged him as well. He was fifth in the opening stage and it took him until stage seven to fight his way into second.

“I think there was a fair bit of rain in the week leading up to it. The first couple of stages were on shire roads and they are a really odd surface to drive on,” he said.

“They were incredibly slippery, but at the same time we chewed out some front tyres quite dramatically despite there not being any grip.

“There was a point where we were coming down into a corner, braked a bit hard in fourth and stalled it, just locked all four wheels and stalled the thing.

“We put it back into third gear and it wouldn’t roll start to start with, there wasn’t enough traction to get the wheels turning and turn the motor. I got there, but there was a bit of a moment with heart in mouth.”

The fourth round of the series will be staged at Bulahdelah on July 29.