A move away from the Northern Ireland championship, which he has won for the past three years, and a switch from Subaru to Ford, have combined to make 2007 a difficult and frustrating season for the Dungiven driver. He's had more non-finishes than he cares to count, all of it adding up to an erosion of confidence.

"At the pace we're going at, you've got to believe the car is going to do what you want it to do," he says, "and for me that hasn't been happening this year. Not on tarmac anyway.

"The Subaru and the Ford are both top cars but they are very different to drive and I'd be the first to admit I've struggled to adapt to the Focus."

Lynch gave himself an enormous confidence boost ahead of Saturday's Turkington Lurgan Park Rally with his victory on the Dogleap Rally last weekend.

No surprise there, of course, because he had won the event for the past four years, but it was the manner of the victory that buoyed him up.

"I decided to give every stage 100 per cent commitment - to throw caution to the wind and push the car as hard as it would go to see what it could do," he explains. "I have to say I was impressed and felt really happy with it for the first time.

"Yes, I've won the Dogleap a lot of times and I know the stages pretty well, but, for instance, on the longest stage, Cam forest, I was nearly 30 seconds faster than I've ever gone in the Subaru. That tells you what the car can do and really boosts your confidence."

However, nowhere will test his new-found confidence more than Lurgan Park with its tight, tree-lined lanes - a place where even the smallest mistake may not just be counted in seconds lost but in bent body panels.

Lynch loves the place, revels in its unique challenge, and has been beaten all-comers, including a clutch of British and Irish champions, for the past three years. He's up for it again and much more like his old bullish self.

He's well aware that Mark Higgins is back, the reigning British champion armed this time with his Easter International-winning Subaru S11 and looking for revenge for his defeat by Lynch three years ago.

He'll have 10-times park winner Kenny McKinstry on his tail, too, as well as former World production champion Niall McShea, who is expected to switch from his planned Toyota Corolla to a Subaru, and reigning Irish national champion Charlie Donnelly, who will be in his title-winning Corolla.

"Whoever wins will have to be going hard," says Lynch, " you'll not doddle round and win, that's for sure.

"Every corner is crucial and it is not easy to get every one perfect, that's the challenge of it. It will be down to a second here or a second there and whoever gets it will deserve it. I'm certainly up for the fight - can't wait to get started."

Meanwhile, former Junior World champion ace Kris Meeke had an offer he couldn't refuse - the chance to drive in the Ford Escort Challenge section.

"Conor Curley (son of former Circuit of Ireland winner Cahal) asked me if I wanted to drive one of their Mk2 Escorts. I thought he was mad," says Rally of the Lakes winner Meeke. "But who turns down the chance to drive an Escort? They are the most fun cars ever."

There will be 15 of them in the Challenge driven by the likes of Wesley Patterson, Seamus O'Connell, Adrian Hetherington, Norman Armstrong, Curley and Glenn Allen, the NI championship leader who goes back to his roots to drive Camilius Bradley's Escort.

And spare a thought for Stewart Clarke. The Enniskillen driver had a massive accident in the park last year, destroying his Escort. Now with the car fully re-built, he's heading back to the scene of the mayhem. Brave man.