Former Australian Rally Champion, Eli Evans, still isn’t sure if he’ll have the chance to test his brand new Mini Cooper AP4 before this weekend’s Eureka Rally gets underway.
Eli Evans will debut his AP4 Mini this weekend.Evans and co-driver, Glen Weston, will debut the car in the opening round of the Australian Rally Championship at Ballarat, but the Melbourne-based Evans Motorsport team are still madly putting the finishing touches to the car.
“We’re not at testing today as we would like to be,” Evans told RallySport Magazine this morning.
“The guys in the workshop have been working to 1am or 2am every day, and then arrive back again at 7am to start again. It’s been a huge effort.”
Evans said that what should, in normal circumstances, be a nine month build process has been squeezed into a three month period.
“There’s nothing production car about it, it’s all full race car, so everything has to be fully fabricated and hand made.
“Currently we’re finishing off the custom intercooler with all the piping, inlets and the turbo, so it really is a last minute rush,” he said.
“In saying that though, we want to do it right as we know the car has got 220km of competitive stages to do this weekend.
“If the car doesn’t finish the rally, then the weekend won’t be as successful as we want.”
The new Mini AP4 may not turn a wheel in anger until the first stage of the Eureka Rally.Evans was still confident the team would be on the start line for stage one, but still wasn’t sure whether his first drive of the car would be on stage one, or at the pre-event shakedown on Friday.
“I have no idea yet - we’ll just have to see when we get it finished.
“But on the positive side, these AP4 cars have been built before - not a Mini, but other makes - and we know what to expect, even if I don’t get any testing time in the car.
“From what I understand they can be quite tailey in their handling characteristics, which suits me just fine, as I certainly prefer that to an understeering car.”
The car will be unveiled later today with a new colour scheme that Evans says “looks fantastic”.
- Peter Whitten
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