Two brothers from Wymondham are heading to New York after sweeping the board in national digger driving contest. Liam Lambert, 23 and his brother Gary, 27, of GSD Lambert and Sons, beat off stiff competition from more than 500 entrants to take first and second places respectively in the JCB Backhoe Loader Operator Challenge.

Two brothers from Wymondham are heading to New York after sweeping the board in national digger driving contest.

Liam Lambert, 23 and his brother Gary, 27, of GSD Lambert and Sons, beat off stiff competition from more than 500 entrants to take first and second places respectively in the JCB Backhoe Loader Operator Challenge.

Liam's prize was a long weekend in New York - and he intends to take Gary along for the trip.

The brothers took to the controls of a JCB backhoe loader to complete three challenges against the clock in the fastest times.

These involved picking up steel rings and place them over a tube using the backhoe bucket teeth, operating a hydraulic grab on the excavator to pick and place tyres over a pole, and drawing a metal ring across a steel wire without touching it

When the times were totted up, Liam was declared the overall winner with in 2mins 6 secs - beating his brother by just 19 seconds.

He saud: “I've been driving JCB machines since I was six years old and we have a number of backhoe loaders and tracked excavators in the company fleet. In fact we buy many of our machines from Watling JCB in Wymondham - they are our local dealer.”

The competition took place at the recent SED 2008 event for the construction industry, held at Rockingham, Northamptonshire.