Rotorua-based teenager Sloan Cox is looking to continue the Cox Motorsport team celebrations when round three of the New Zealand Rally Championship, Rally Wairarapa, gets underway this weekend.
On Saturday evening, Cox received the trophy for his 2010 Junior New Zealand Rally Champion title. The celebrations continued when co-driver and sister Tarryn was announced as one of the nine to attend this year’s Motorsport New Zealand Elite Academy. Nineteen year old Sloan has also attended the academy back in 2008.
The Cox Motorsport pair set several top five stage times at Rally New Zealand before a clutch failure slowed them on day two. Set-up changes to the car before that event left the car with more than optimum levels of oversteer, but a test day held over the weekend has rectified the issue and Cox is now confident that he can continue to increase his pace at Wairarapa.
“After testing before Rally New Zealand, we thought we had the handling sorted but during the event we noticed that the car was a bit loose in the rear compared to where we like it,” said Cox. “So we improved the back of the car at our recent test day and now it feels a lot better.”
Last year’s Rally Wairarapa was the final round of the 2010 NZRC and Cox set a consistent pace with the priority being to wrap up the junior title. Despite a scare with a blown turbo before the final stage, the brother/sister pair secured the title.
This year’s event, run earlier in the year, sees the Cox pair seeded seventh. After a ceremonial start at the Solway Park resort in Masterton on Friday night, the action gets underway the following day with eight special stages totalling 157.91 kilometres around the Pongaroa region. Day two sees the cars in the Eketahuna area, with a further nine stages before the ceremonial finish back at Solway Park at 4.15pm.
Press Release by BB Media
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