Jeremy Smith, the Breighton, Selby, youngster driving in his first Autosport F3 championship arrived home last night with two trophies and a bottle of champers to celebrate a successful day's racing.

Smith transferred to Formula 3 this season after a successful tour in the Ford Slik championship and made an immediate impact, winning his class, the National Championship for 1998 cars.

Overall, he finished the race 13th, all the drivers above him competing in the championship in this year's cars.

"We had quite a good day," said a modest Smith, who received a second trophy for "just being one of the winners".

During the close season, Smith had considered transferring to the single seater Renault championship. "But I felt the F3 championship was a greater challenge."

Previous F3 winners have included Jackie Stewart, Ayrton Senna, Nigel Mansell and Damon Hill.

The next two rounds of the championship are at Silverstone this weekend, on Saturday and Sunday.

It was also a triumphant day for Green Hammerton meat trader Miles Johnston.

Competing in the first round of the Peugeot Super 106 Rally Championship at Silverstone, he finished 14th and picked up prize money.

Although in earlier stages he picked up a slow puncture and the car's rear brakes developed a fault, he was also able to return some of the fastest times of the day.

Also at Silverstone, York's Peter Emson held on to 16th place overall in the first round of the BMW drivers championship.

Colin McRae maintained his storming start to the Rally of Portugal.

McRae clocked the fastest time on the first of today's eight special stages to extend his overnight lead to over 17 seconds.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.