To mark his return, Tony put in some of the fastest stage times in his class and even managed to amaze the spectators by a dramatic finish on three wheels!

The earlier optimism had returned, but Tony's next event was the Vauxhall Astra Stages on 18th August which included a course through Cloclaenog forest. This was the first time he head driven in a forest on the loose surface and his car was a hired Vauxhall Astra GTE.

During the rally, the Astra suffered a snapped drive shaft and a puncture but Tony still managed to drive home an admirable 24th overall and 8th in class.

In 2002 Tony joined forces with VW racing and competed in the Castrol sponsored, Polo Challenge class of the British Rally Championships. This was the perfect stage for Tony to showcase his skills.

Having such high flying team mates as Roger Anderson Swedish National Championship and Mark Thompson Mitsubishi Australian was a great inspiration for Tony, he also embarked on private coaching from Pentti Arikila and Geoff Jones on his driving style. Thanks to a rush of media attention, finding sponsorship for the 2003 season was easy.

After a magnificent run in the 2002 season where Tony spent most of the year between third and fourth place, bad luck came back to haunt him in 2003.

Tony took a nasty roll during the Red Dragon Rally early in the season, which combined with work commitments all but forced Tony out for the rest of the season.

Return to his spiritual home of rallyschool.co.uk team driving their group N Polo in the BTRDA national series with young up and coming co-driver Robert Fagg contesting 5 rounds of the championship. Working hard with the team to develop their Polo, Rob and Tony put together a string of fastest stage times over the handful of events they did together.

Rob has continued to progress in rallying and has since competed with Martin Rowe a former British Rally champion over in China in 2005 and the coming year. Also Rob is competing in the British Rally Championships with James Wozencroft a very gifted young up and coming driver who has been chosen for the MSA Elite scheme.

In 2005 rallyschool.co.uk team who were running the MG Sport & Racing rally program at national level and Tony returned to drive one of the MGZR 1400 group N rally cars for the team. Returning along side Tony was Stefan Arndt who had been with the Tony in his last year at Volkswagen Racing.

It proved to a successful return for the pair three 2nd places and 3rd place in the MGZR proved to the spark that would return them to a full season return in 2006 competing in the 2006 Silverstone Tyres Stars section of the British Rally Championships with a new car and new team.