NICK WILLIAMSON is ready to call time on one of the top national saloon car championships after winning it three times in a row.

The 46-year-old Southampton driver has made the Toyo Tyres Modified Production Saloon Car Championship his own in his home-built Peugeot 205.

Now he's contemplating making the switch, either to the Southern Saloon Car or the Classic Thunder Series, while he hasn't ruled out the possibility of contesting the Castle Combe Championship, dominated by his Southampton counterpart Gary Prebble in recent years.

When Williamson met Prebble in the 11th round of the Toyo Tyres Championship at Thruxton recently, it was dubbed the battle of the south coast giants.

Prebble won it, not surprisingly, in his more powerful Rover Turbo, but Williamson gave him a good run for his money and actually led for a couple of laps.

"Considering Gary had 380 horse power compared to my 225, I wasn't honestly expecting to beat him.

"He's a hard man to beat at the best of times, but I was pleased to make a decent battle of it.

"But with a hat-trick of championship wins now behind me, I'm looking for new challenges and I'm considering two or three opt- ions.

The favourite might well be the Southern Saloon Car Series, in which his Peugeot would run as a Class C car shod with slick tyres.

Williamson's Peugeot, incredibly, is 14 years old but, with an engine rebuild here and a brake and bodywork tweak there, it has proved almost unbeatable in the capable hands of its driver.

Apart from a gearbox failure at Pembrey in April, former biker racer Williamson has been a class winner in all the remaining ten rounds of the championship.

He's even taken give overall wins against the bigger, more powerful cars in the championship.

If he decides to race in the local Castle Combe series, his Peugeot will be pitted into the same class as three litre cars, which will make life really tough.

But he says: "I've got a good little car - I'd make the bigger guys work for it."

Williamson, who runs his own garage in Woolston, keeps running costs to a minimum by doing so much of the work on the car himself.

But, without his sponsors Owen Developments, it would have been a struggle.

"I owe a lot to them and also to my wife Cathy and daughters Sophie and Georgia, who have supported me all the way through," he smiled.