Bates unsure of 2010 ARC plans

Multiple Australian Rally Champion, Neal Bates, is unsure of what the future holds for him, despite some impressive stage times at Repco Rally Australia.

Speaking after the event, Bates said that he had no idea what lay ahead for he, Coral Taylor and the Toyota Corolla S2000.

“I honestly have no idea,” Bates told RallySport Magazine. “Of course I’d love to do the ARC again next year, but at this stage nothing is in place and we will need to find a lot more dollars than we did this year.”

Bates said that he wouldn’t be prepared to run another season on a shoestring, as he did in 2009.

“After 20 years as a factory driver this year was very hard financially, and I’m not prepared to go through that again,” he admitted.

“We’ll just have to work hard on sponsorship and see what we can come up with.”

Bates had a torrid Rally Australia, holing a radiator on day two and then suffering an oil line failure on day three. His stage times, however, showed that there’s plenty of life in the ACT driver yet.

“We only had two and a half weeks to get ready for Rally Australia after the Cars Guide sponsorship came through, so it was a real rush,” he added.

Privateer Stewart Reid ran a Bates-prepared S2000 Corolla in the rally, but also suffered problems.

Photo: Peter Whitten

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