Welcome back in RaceDepartment Rally Championship! Today, we take a look at the second round of the third season, which took us into gravel stages in New South Wales, based in the coastal city Coffs Harbour.
It's popular one among rallye fans, because local weather is warm and sea is not far away. Trough technical check successfully passed 55 crews, but only 51 of them could score. At those gravel stages, WRC cars had much more better conditions than any other class, so Production cars weren't dominative like in round 1.
Weather forecast announced no clouds for all days and very high temperature. Fortunately, fresh sea wind made nice conditions for stay. Before shakedown was scheduled stage for spectators in the early Thursday and track was built in the city itself. Visitors could watch all famous drivers flat-outing trough the tight city streets. Organizers planned it to be accessible for fans, so it was nearby service zone. After that, crews moved to north to shakedown stage, which was this time during night. It got by without accidents this time. Then, drivers went for a sleep to be fresh for next days and fans could experience night life of Coffs Harbour.
First stage started
Mark Johnston. After his performance in round 1, he was supposed to be one of the fastest. But he wasn't able to be competitive at any stage. "
I couldn't find suitable setup. I changed my suspension after each stage, but I just couldn't find the right setup. It was very painful." He finished first day deep in the grid with big loss, out of points. Different story was written by
Tor Anders Berven, who set the fastest times at first two stages, but with
Mark Birney attacking from behind. Gap between them at the first stage was under one second.
Jakub Sulej was also fast enough to pack himself between them. After 3rd stage, it was close fight in A2 class.
Jakub Sulej attacked hard to first
Tor Anders Berven and managed to overtook him at next two stages, where he was the fastest. But then, a mistake was made by
Jakub. "
It was something shouldn't have happened. It was in the five left turn, after 200 meters straight. You have to brake very hard into that corner, because you must be fast on the straight. I told my co-driver to add note in the pacenotes about difficulty of this corner, but I was still too fast, because I just made the fastest time at previous stage. I wanted to maintain the gap. I locked wheels in try to turn and ended in bushes," he explained. "
I got out of there, without damage. I was very lucky this time but lost about ten or fifteen seconds. I lost my lead at this stage." Thanks to this,
Tor and
Mark were now in front. Behind
Jakub settled
John Cunningham, who drove stable times, without mistakes before night service after day 1, which
Mark Johnston didn't leave. "
We had problems with cooling system and we didn't want to risk damaging the engine because of the hot weather."
Round 2 / Day 1 highlights:
Day 2 was best started by
Jakub, who set the fastest time and jumped to the first place. But at the upcoming stage, he made huge mistake. It was in the second run of Greenhills stage. When he got to overcrowded viewing place, the famous ford, he just flat-outed trough the watter. This created big aquaplaning effect and he lost traction in next turn. He went straight and said hello to trees, where he stuck until rescue car arrived. He continued, but the loss was big and he disappeared down in the field.
Tor now had nobody in front and took the lead.
Gabor Tim also jumped into fights for podium. He found new speed in second runs and focused on stable times. This brought him sweet fruits. Firstly, he got ahead of
Dariusz Swiderski, then it was
John who must have let him pass. His ability to make no mistakes placed him to second position in the finish.
Tor realized that insane drive could have cost him win, so he slowed down and just finished.
John finished third with
Dariusz behind, who was slower only by 4 seconds. "
It was true fight until the end,"
John relieved.
In A1 class (old WRC and A8 cars cup) were signed 4 drivers.
Norman Biscuit set the fastest time at the first stage, but he couldn't continue without mistakes. He missed a note about bump and full throttle pushed him off the road. It was fortunately viewing post, so visitors helped him immediately. Mistakes went the same for
Hubert Smolders and
Ben Tusting. Thanks to them,
Ian Bundell took the lead and he dominated for the rest of the day. "
I am sure my opponents could have done better. Not sure what happened to them, but I was winner of every stage after Norman's mistake."
Day 2 wasn't much exciting,
Ian just won remaining stages, but he finished in top 10 overall. Second
Hubert was losing over 15 minutes in the end. The rest of the field retired from the rallye.
Round 2 / Day 2 highlights:
Big fights were in Production class.
Simone Demi was setting fast times and was increasing his gap to the others stage by stage. "
I had no opponent there," he said. "Warren tried to keep with me and he was even able to at the first stage, but then anyone could stay against my times." He was very pleased and self-confident, after he could beat WRC cars in the first round. He has day 1 under control for the whole time. Interesting things happened behind him, while
Warren Dawes, second at that time, was trying to find a way how to improve his times,
Łukasz Demolin in his out classed, old Subaru showed on the time table just few seconds behind.
Jeremy Loveland did big mistake earlier the day and was losing several seconds on
Łukasz. He was 4th after day 1.
Day 2 was important for
Warren. He was still losing time on
Simone during the day. Then,
Simone crashed at the last stage and lost two minutes on
Warren, who didn't know that yet. It was told him in the finish. "
You must be kidding. I don't believe you," he was surprised. But when he looked at time table he realized the meaning of it. He won his class and even finished in top ten and scored in the outright. Sad Simone had arrived to last time control without front bumper. "I don't know what happened, really no," he said and went away. Another close finish was done by
Jeremy and
Łukasz. They were overtaking each other trough the day, but the luckier one was
Jeremy, and only by 1 second. "
Naaaaaaarrrgh! You know what it is one second? I lost by length of the car!" was
Łukasz screaming. But when he calmed down, he congratulated to
Jeremy like a real man.
Jani Nylander was leading junior class before overnight service. He managed to win most of the stages and avoid any mistakes.
Troy Ament tried to attack and did a mistake at stage n°5, where he did defect of left rear wheel. "
I hit retarder, I was lucky marshals didn't penalized me with 30 seconds." Close fights for the last podium place were in hands of
Mikka Peltola and
Pete Mull.
After night service,
Jani held the first place until finish, even though he didn't win all stages in day 2. But
Troy wasn't just fast enough. He knew he can't win and finished with sure drive. Big surprise was
Olli Kauppinen, who overtook both,
Mikka and
Pete and finished third. "
I think they were just concentrated on their fight only and I could easily drive my race until the end".
In rookie class were 5 drivers fighting for points. Everyone of them made at least one fastest time, except
Teemu Toikka. But situation played into his cards, because
Michael Hammond with
Daniel Olsson were just pushing too hard and had a lot of accidents. They both retired from the rallye in the end.
Viesturs Pried was leading, either in the first day and day 2. But
Norman Bruce didn't give anything for free, he improved setup of the car at night and did well in the second day. "
I did my best, I drove trough several stages with amazing times, but 'Vies' is good driver. He deserved to win."
The second round mixed up Teams Championship.
JME-Rookie is now leading with just 2 points ahead of
Team Terror Australis A. Third is Ford Motorsport, losing 7 points to second place.
You can find round 2 results
here and overall results after round 2
here.
We asked again
Rick Bamford, RDRC director, what can we expect in round 3.
"Round 3 is a new event for the RDRC. Rallye Terre De L'Auxerrois brings us to France for some fantasic gravel roads.
The event starts with two very different stages. First is Bisanne 2, tight and twisting at first going up the mountain before the downhill run through a number of switchback hairpins. Second takes os to the open fields and ultra fast roads of Limbo. Both stages repeated in the afternoon before finishing with a run around the Essay Circuits des DUCS rallycroos stage. The top crews will most likely have a different setup for each stage.
Over night rain continuing into the morning will make day 2 the most challenging of the championship so far. An early start sees a predawn run over Cote D'Abroz 2 before sunrise. Then the two Joux stages, Verte 2 and Plane 2. The weather will fine up for the second run over these stages but the surface will still be damp. Returning the the rallycross stage will finish out the event."
Changes were done by
Ondřej Kapal, who left
RedBull team and regained contract with
DSC Delimax Motorsport from season 2 after several negatives with Mitsubishi Lancer EVO IX. He will drive the same car like last year, at the moment older version of Škoda Fabia S2000 evo 1.
That is all for now. Say hello to us and see you after round 3!
