Rally Estonia wrapped up on Saturday evening and with Eli Evans’ European outing came to a premature end, Aussie honours on Sunday were upheld by Scott Pedder, who continued his hard fought battle at the Chinese Zhangye Rally.
“Our weekend is done and dusted and all in all it’s been a great experience. I’ve really enjoyed working with an incredible team and a great group of people. Atko (Chris Atkinson) won the rally outright and the team boss won 2WD, so it’s been a great result to be a part of,” Pedder said.
“For me the first two stages this morning were amazing, we set the fourth fastest time outright on both, losing out only to Atko, Mark Higgins and Niall McShea, and we managed to beat Manfred Stohl both times and he was driving a Group N Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX – not bad for a front-wheel drive car and great to be able to finally show what we can do!”
“On the third stage though, about a kilometre in, one of the drivers ahead of us had pulled out a massive rock and we hit it and broke a wheel. We stopped to change it but the jack broke, and I had to run back to the start of the stage to get help. All up we lost over an hour and that was it.”
“The roads today were even faster than yesterday, so that’s probably a big factor in the stage times we were able to set. The roads were more open, real desert stuff with sand off the edge of the road in all directions. It’s not really Dakar type stuff, it’s more like the scenery you see driving out of Las Vegas.”
“On each of the first two stages the average speed was probably around 120km/h, and so unbelievably technical with lots of dips right before corners and crests. The thing that makes it so technical is the lack of any reference points, there literally is nothing out there, no tree lines or anything to guide you.”
“Damian (Long, co-driver) did an incredible job with the notes especially considering it was such a tough rally, and our first ever event together too. And yesterday we really didn’t get much time at all in the car together.”
“It was also much cooler today, all week it’s been in the mid-30’s because it’s the middle of summer up here in China. We even had a little bit of rain at one point.”
“It was a bad rally for us but an amazing experience. We showed the car has serious potential and it’d be great to be able to come back and spend some more time with the team.”
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