The announcement of the Rallyschool.com.au Australian Junior Challenge as part of this year’s Australian Rally Championship has lured the promising young ACT driver, Tristan Kent to compete in this year’s ARC.
At just 19 years of age and still on his P plates, Tristan has already impressed many with his speed in the ACT and NSW, and he is keen to try his hand with the big guns in the ARC.
In just 2 years and a handful of rallies Tristan is already making many stand up and take notice of his pace, but unfortunately has been plagued with unreliability issues with his Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 2.
2010 started off with a creditable 2nd place and 3 stage wins in the first round of the ACT Regional Rally Series behind multiple ACT Champion John Stilling in an Evo 9. The following round saw him with a 30 second lead over John and 4 stage wins when a tie rod end failure on SS7 put him down a bank and out of the event.
The Bega round of the NSW resulted in an accident on the first stage which put him out of action for a couple of rallies, but at the Bay Stages NSW State round he raised eyebrows when running an impressive 2nd place and just seconds behind twice NSW Champion and former ARC privateer regular John Mitchell, before gearbox failure on SS3 put Tristan out of the event.
Tristan is hoping to find some reliability in his car over the off season in preparation for a serious assault on the RAJC. Calling the notes for Tristan in 2011 and helping him to keep a cool head will be the very experienced Jim Gleeson. Jim has been navigating at all levels of the sport since 1979 and his experience will be invaluable to Tristan.
As an apprentice carpenter and holding down an additional two part time jobs, Tristan works hard for his rallying and is currently trying to get the budget together in order to make the long haul from Canberra across the Nullarbor to the first RAJC qualifying round in WA.
Photo by Josh Cato
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