The whole Cox Motorsport team have been burning the midnight oil in preparation for the opening round of the New Zealand Rally Championship, Rally of Otago, which runs from April 8-10.
For 2010 New Zealand Junior Rally Champion Sloan Cox, the opportunity to compete in the national hillclimb championships over the off-season was too good to pass up and heading into the final round, held across two events in the Canterbury region on March 26-27, Cox was in with a shot of winning the title.
A win on the opening day was the perfect start to his title hopes, however while on the start line of the first run of the second day, engine failure ended all title hopes. By the time the day’s action unfolded, Rotorua’s Cox claimed third place in the championship.
Since then, the whole Cox Motorsport crew have worked tirelessly to rebuild the engine in the Taslo Engineering Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X to make the opening round of the national championship, where Cox will once again team up with co-driving sister Tarryn for the event.
The Otago event holds good memories for the Cox pair, with 19-year-old Sloan taking his first NZRC stage win last year on the Dunedin-based event. A year on and with spring rate changes to complement upgraded brakes thanks to Glenn Smith, Cox is looking for bigger and better things.
“I really have to thank our whole team, who have worked their butts off so that we will be able to get to Otago,” says Sloan. “It will be really interesting to see how we go with the improvements to the car and the night stages.”
Three stages run in darkness on the Friday evening will kick off Rally Otago, with a further six stages run in daylight the following day completing the opening leg, which totals 151.94 kilometres of special stages. Sunday’s leg two adds a further 119.55 kilometres before the overall winner of the Rally of Otago will be determined.
Press Release by BB Media
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