Two of the East Coast Bullbars Australian Rally Championship’s leading drivers, Eli Evans and Scott Pedder, are this weekend competing on different sides of the globe. Here's the latest from the Rally Estonia and the Zhangye Rally in China.
Eli Evans
“It’s been a very tough first day,” exclaimed Eli from Estonia. “I was able to start on the pace of the outright 2WD guys, who are actually in R2 spec cars, a couple of the local boys who are unbelievably fast.”
“But on the fourth stage I made a mistake coming off the main road into a tight corner around a tree and overshoot through some barriers. We managed to get some of the barrier stuck underneath the car and even though we stopped to try to pull it out it took probably about 5 kilometres before it worked itself free.”
“Apart from the time we lost we also got a penalty for going through the fence. After service we won the next stage but then on the sixth stage a tightening corner over a crest I just got it wrong and smacked the bank with the front of the car, it was a pretty hard whack and we damaged the radiator.”
“Luckily we had service straight after and the guys were able to fix the damage but we’re probably going to receive a 30-second penalty for being late out of service.”
“The roads are amazing, extremely fast, you can see why drivers contest this rally in preparation for Rally Finland. I reckon the average speed is probably about 120-130km/h and very challenging with lots of crests. The roads are wide so I have to keep reminding myself to stay in 5th and 6th gears instead of going down a gear for corners like I would in Australia.”
“At the end of the day we’re currently third in 2WD (dropped to sixth after penalty was applied, 27th outright), so our aim is to try to get back some of those positions tomorrow with a clean run.”
Scott Pedder
“Only a short day today, we did a 20km stage and then a Super Special Stage. In comparison we’ve got 120km of stages on Saturday and another 100km on Sunday.”
“We had a fuel problem on the transport to the very first stage, the car was probably running on two cylinders but we still managed to take the 2WD win by about 40 seconds.”
“After we fixed the problem the car probably had too much power, I think we’re finding the limit of the standard diff that’s in the car. Otherwise the car is pretty good, it’s no Clio but it’s a lot of fun to drive.”
“Today’s stage was also extremely rough, basically the surface is just river rocks. Tomorrow’s roads are extremely technical, probably the most technical rally roads I’ve ever driven. They are really well formed roads but they meander through the desert before you drop into canyons, its pretty amazing landscape to rally through.”
“The Chinese Championship is pretty well run but the competition is amazing. Walking around the service park I counted maybe 7 to 8 manufacturer teams all running between 5 and 6 cars. The entry list for this event is over 100 cars, and the event has live national television coverage, so the audience today alone is probably more than the entire population of Australia!”
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