Weeks and Allen were quietly confident of a top showing after cruising through Tuesday’s prologue stage, and were setting some scorching times on Wednesday before the engine let go.
“It is extremely devastating,” Supaloc Racing technical director Oscar Fiorinotto said. “This year, we knew we were in with a really good shot at outright victory, and everyone in the team is just absolutely shattered.
“We’re not really sure why the engine failed; for some reason it ran out of oil pressure. We’ve never had any type of mechanical failure on this car before. I suppose it had to happen eventually but it happened at the worst possible time.
“It’s extremely frustrating considering the amount of work everyone in the team put into preparing the car, and the preparation Kevin put into his personal approach to the event.
“Now the focus is on working out why the problem occurred and making sure it doesn’t happen again.
“We’ll get the car ready for the South Australian ATP Rally in three weeks, make sure we get Kevin back into the car and bounce back as quickly as we can. We’ll be building a new engine and doing as many tarmac rallying events as we can, and hopefully come back and make amends in Targa Tasmania 2011,” Fiorinotto concluded.
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