Paul Batten and Craig Jones have taken out the Rally Challenge in the closest title battle of the 2007 NEC Australian Rally Championship. Heading into the final round, the NGK Rally of Melbourne, held in Victoria's Yarra Valley this weekend, PBR were tied on 200 points with Fullerton Financial Services Bruce Fullerton and Hugh Reardon-Smith.

While the battle was tipped to be fought out between Batten and Fullerton, five of the eight crews competing in the rally.com.au Rally Challenge at the NGK Rally of Melbourne had a mathematical chance of taking the 2007 title.

Throughout the morning stages of Heat One Batten and Fullerton traded stage times at one point being separated by only 1.3 seconds, however all of Fullerton's hard work was undone on SS8 when he suffered an engine failure resulting in his retirement from the event.

Although the Championship came down to the line, PBR were definitely deserved winners of the title, taking out seven of the eight heats they contested in this year's rally.com.au Rally Challenge, a commendable achievement in their first year competing in a Turbo charged car.

It has not been an easy run to the title however, with the team suffering a heavy crash in Heat Two of the fifth round of the Championship, the Great Lakes Rally. The resulting damage meant PBR had to complete a full car rebuild requiring parts from across Australia, to be flown to co-driver Craig Jones' workshop in Gosford, NSW.

Re-building the car in just three weeks, the team and their service crew were still working on the car on Friday night to get it ready for the start of Heat One on Saturday morning.

Paul and Craig use the ubiquitous DUNLOP DZ86R rally tyres on COMPOMOTIVE motorsport wheels.