Having competed at last year’s Croatian Round of the European Rally Championship, Adrian Coppin will expand his overseas experience when he returns to European tarmac to contest the ninth Round of the WRC at Rallye Deutschland later this year.
“It’s really a dream to be able to confirm driving in Germany,” Adrian said. “It will be with the same team that I drove for in Croatia last year, it’ll be back on tarmac and it’ll be in a Citroen DS3 again.”
Coppin’s opportunity to compete last year in Croatia came about through connections with Molly Taylor, after the pair ran two identical Ford Fiesta R2’s at the 2013 edition of Scouts Rally SA.
And it’s those same international connections that have brought about this further opportunity for Adrian to compete in Germany. “Basically it was all a flow on from last year. Obviously when you compete overseas you get to meet a lot of new people, you start talking and through those conversations one thing led to another, and yeah now we’re off to Germany, it’s incredible.”
He went on to explain that originally his hope was to contest a gravel Round overseas this year, but that the WRC and ARC calendars didn’t leave any real opportunities.
“We tried but nothing aligned properly, which was a bit of a bummer, but I’m looking on the bright side and that’s that any chance to compete at an International event is such an amazing opportunity.”
“For any rally driver you always dream about competing regularly overseas, so it’s incredibly fulfilling for me think that in 20 years time I’ll be able to say ‘I drove those roads, I competed in a tarmac WRC’,”
Keeping a level head and having a clean rally are Coppin’s goals, the Canberran driver fully aware of the continued steep learning curve he faces rallying on unfamiliar surfaces.
“Obviously I want to do well, but the whole aim is just to get to the end with a spotless car. It’s Europe, there are a heap of fast guys who have spent their whole rally careers driving on tarmac. I’m under no illusions then, but if I can stay out of trouble I’m sure I can finish well.”
Coppin will link up with the Italian D-Max Racing, the same team who runs Molly Taylor’s Citroen DS3 in the Junior World Rally Championship.
The teams experience in running the front-drive Citroen, combined with Coppin’s knowledge this year competing in the same car, will undoubtedly give him more confidence heading to Germany than when he competed at Croatia last year.
“When I first drove the Citroen in Croatia I had so many new things to learn. By the time I get to Germany I’ll have driven four rallies this year in the exact same car, so now I know what options we can change in the handling, I can give proper feedback to the team so it feels a lot more exciting,” he said.
It will mark a busy couple of months for the Citroen driver, who will compete at the upcoming International Rally of Queensland in the Asia-Pacific division, before jetting off to Europe.
“The weekend after Queensland I’m going to Poland,” Adrian explained. “I’m there to meet up with the team, spend some time talking with them, and of course watching Molly in the JWRC. Straight after the rally I’m visiting the teams workshop in Italy.”
“Then two weeks before Germany the team are going to run me in a small Italian rally as a shakedown, get me used to the car on tarmac again, and that all happens the weekend after Rally SA.”
“So it’s going to be very busy for a while, but that’s exciting, lots of bum in seat time and that’s what I wanted when we started this whole process,” he added.