After impacting heavily with a tree stump on Thursday morning’s ARMOR ALL & STP Power Stage, and looking like it’d be a long shot he’d even start the rally, Eli Evans has taken an emotion charged win this afternoon at Coates Hire Rally Australia.
Eli Evans strengthened his lead in the ARC with victory at Rally Australia. (Photo: Peter Whitten)“I’m not usually left lost for words, but today feels very special, quite incredible actually considering that just a few days ago I wasn’t even sure if we’d make the start line,” said a choked up Evans.
“I just can’t thank all the boys enough. The team worked around the clock to repair the car, and they put their faith in me to do them proud, so yeah, it feels amazing to be able to repay them in this way!”
The win pushes Evans even further ahead in the East Coast Bullbars Australian Rally Championship, but the race will go down to the final event of the year, Scouts Rally SA, after Evans’s main rival Molly Taylor managed to claw her way into a podium position in third.
“Unfortunately Evans has a bigger lead on us than at the start of the weekend, but considering the problems we’ve had I’m still very happy to take second, and even happier to still be in the title fight,” Taylor commented.
Splitting the pair was Steve Mackenzie, the young Ford driver matching his speed with a newfound level of consistency to finish the World Championship event in second. “The team gave me a long talking to after Queensland, and I really drove with a plan this weekend, and it’s great that it paid off,” he explained.
Today’s third and final Leg consisted of just five stages, with Evans immediately controlling the pace from the front, 23.1 seconds over the 21.95km Bucca Long. “Surprised a bit, thought I was taking it easy over the rough,” said Evans.
The first stage started badly for Harry Bates though. “It was a decent crash,” he began. “I braked too late for a narrow square right, the surface had turned to that real bull dust, and I went straight off and into a stump.”
On the second stage Evans maintained his winning way, but by a far narrower margin to Molly Taylor, this time just 1.6 seconds the advantage. By the third stage Taylor had finally hit her straps and claimed the stage victory.
“It’s so nice to be able to battle today!” she exclaimed. “We’ve had such a tough weekend, the pace just wasn’t there the last two days, and then finally today things have started to turn around.”
“We made some more small changes, and found the spark plugs were very dirty after yesterday. But I think the nature of the stages is the big thing, far less stop start than the past two days,” Taylor added.
Further back Adrian Coppin’s Citroen DS3, battered and bruised from yesterday’s roll over, had received a new driver's door courtesy of Tony Sullens. “The old one wasn’t closing properly and was letting in a heap of dust, so Tony was kind enough to help us out.”
In the 4WD’s leader Marcus Walkem was concentrating on maintaining his lead from a hard charging Mick Patton, the margin holding steady at just over one minute. “It’s actually been quite difficult, but we have a big enough of a gap now.”
Patton had made some adjustments to his Mitsubishi but was unable to close down the margin to Walkem. “He’s driving incredibly well,” said Patton. “We’ve made some changes to suit the stages today and it’s feeling good.”
Gerald Schofield moved up into the final 4WD podium position after Mike Bailey crashed off the road.
With just two stages to go, and with almost two minutes advantage, one would think Eli Evans would be back off the pace. But on the penultimate stage Evans once again put the pedal to the metal, opening a further 19.9 second buffer over Mackenzie.
And after a frustrating year developing his Volkswagen Polo finally some joy for Ashlea James, who set the second fastest stage time behind Evans over the 9.23km Wedding Bells stage.
In the 4WD’s it was a special victory for Tasmanian Walkem, once again highlighting his unbelievable pace despite his limited appearances in the Australian Rally Championship.
“An awesome event,” said Walkem at the finish in Coffs Harbour. “An incredible feeling to win against such a strong field of four-wheel drives this weekend. We had some issues on Friday but we managed to stay in touch and then pull ahead yesterday.”
Second placed Mick Patton extended his points lead in the National 4WD Series, having played the tactical game all weekend. “I’m happy with second, we achieved what we came here to achieve and that was to leave in an even stronger position in the points. I’m looking forward to Rally SA now,” he said.
In the Classics Clay Badenoch appeared to have it all his own way, but he admitted that despite his eventual winning margin of over thirteen minutes from second placed Keith Fackrell and third place getter Brett Stephens it had been a tough weekend.
“Obviously not having Neal (Bates) start the rally left me with a lot of pressure to live up to,” laughed Badenoch. “It was a shame not to be able to race against Neal and Coral (Taylor, co-driver) this weekend but I’m happy I was able to uphold honours for the team and Toyota.”
And after being kept honest by second placed Iain Hughes and third placed Nathan Chivers, Cody Crocker once again stood on the top step of the podium in the Side-by-Side Rally Challenge.
“Guesty has the speed, but we have the reliability,” he said. “I feel for Can-Am and Guesty, we had those sorts of problems too when we debuted this car originally. I know they’ll get on top of it and been right on our tails when they do.”
The East Coast Bullbars Australian Rally Championship now gears up for its season finale – Scouts Rally SA – which runs in the Adelaide hills from the 23rd to the 25th October.
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