Eli Evans has completed the weekend clean sweep at Scouts Rally SA, winning the ARMOR ALL & STP Power Stage and all three Heats.
Evans arrived at the end of the day’s opening stage, the 20.45km Crawford stage, with the rubber on his Kumho tyres worn down to the canvas. “Just belts hanging off, I think the front right, but also the front left – that was a bit challenging!” he said.
“I made some suspension changes last night, some big ones, so it was hard to tell if it was better or not because the tyres blew off. The last three or four km I had to back off because I could hear clang, clang, clang, clang, clang of the rubber coming off the tyre,” Eli added.
Evans’ time was 8.6 seconds faster than Molly Taylor, with Ashlea James third, with Steve Mackenzie a non-appearance at the stage finish.
“He seemed to be off after a fairly decent jump, but I couldn’t see what the problem is,” said Ashlea James of Mackenzie. “It looks like he’s arrived at the next corner too quickly, there’s a dirty big pair of skid marks.”
Recovery crews went into the stage once it had finished, finding Mackenzie off the road. “We were having a real crack on that stage, I reckon we were ten seconds up on our previous run through and we would have been on the money, but on a cut earlier in the stage I think I’ve hit something and slightly bent something,” Steve explained.
“Coming up over the jump down the road there once we landed the wheels broken something, ripped the wheel off eventually and here we are parked here. We’ve had a really tough year and the guys have had to work at every event quite hard.”
“Credit to the boys to come away with third this year is excellent. It didn’t start out to well, but we managed to get a few points the last couple of events. A few unfortunate things held us back this year,” Mackenzie added.
After the morning service Eli continued his surge, claiming stage wins on the three following stages until Molly finally broke his grip on stage victories with a win on SS21, the 15.47km Goldfields stage.
With just two final passes around the short Gawler Showgrounds stage Evans claimed one final win, before Ashlea James powered to a win on the final stage of the event.
“It’s a pretty good way to finish off a really, really difficult year,” said Ashlea at the finish, securing third on the podium.
“Moral was pretty low, even after the last event, and I went back to the team and said I wasn’t really fussed to go to the last Round. But with the undying support of my wife and my dad, at the last Round you’ve done this much and gone this far we wanted to try to get there and finish on a high,” James added.
Completing second for the weekend, and second in the East Coast Bullbars Australian Rally Championship, Molly Taylor endured a tough weekend even having to resort to push starting her Renault Clio through the day after a clutch fault.
“A lot of runner up’s,” said Molly. “Hopefully we’ll be able to change that next year. At the end of the day we’re really happy with our season. It was my first time coming back to the Championship, a new car, a new team, and we did everything on an absolute shoestring.”
“It’s been an incredible year, we did our best at every rally, and Eli did a fantastic job and was a great benchmark for us. We enjoyed battling with him, and congratulations to him and we’re proud of what we’ve done,” continued Molly.
But the winner for the event and the year was Eli Evans. “I think we’ve won the last six Heat’s now. To top it off winning today was the icing on the cake!”
“The Championship yesterday, the win today, it really wanted it, and I wanted t the clean sweep. We couldn’t be happier right now!”
“Molly Taylor did well all year, Steve Mackenzie had the pressure on too, he’s always improving, and to knock off big brother Simon Evans, who unfortunately wasn’t here, but on the first four rallies that was something special,” said Eli.
In the National 4WD Series Marcus Walkem arrived at the event with everything to play for, and having won the Power Stage and the opening two Heats Walkem was in full control.
“That was a great stage to start the day on, I really enjoyed that stage, it’s really fast and flowing. Got into there, got stuck into it, and really happy with that time,” said Marcus.
On the flip side of the equation Mick Patton arrived at the event with a solid track record of results, but was starring down the barrel of having the 4WD title snatched away from him.
“Our second hand tyres are rapidly diminishing. A couple of really big jumps in there, we probably didn’t realise we were going that ten to fifteen km quicker but the old girl landed really well and off we went,” said Patton.
Walkem opened an immediate advantage, five seconds faster than Patton on the opening stage, which also saw local young gun Guy Tyler drop over three minutes in his Mitsubishi Lancer Evo V.
Amazingly Tyler was able to get immediately back up to speed, claiming the next four stages in a row. The advantage at the front though shifted the way of Harry Bates after he played a gamble on keeping a set of new tyres up his sleeve.
By the end of the Heat though Patton was forced to settle for third and the runner up position in the National 4WD title, with Bates second for the weekend and Walkem taking an unexpected win.
“Coming from a horror year last year we’re actually pretty happy,” admitted Patton despite falling just short of his goal of claiming the title. “We can only go up and get better from there.”
Having started the weekend with testing in mind Bates went on to claim a spectacular debut Heat win. “It’s been an amazing weekend! We came in to learn as much as we could and the win is a bonus I suppose.”
But the winner Marcus Walkem from Tasmania. “We knew we had a big job to do this weekend. We kept chipping away, from the Power Stage to each Heat, and we managed to come away with the win,” exclaimed Marcus.
Finally to the Side-by-Sides, and another Heat win for newly re-crowned Champion Cody Crocker, who held a 32.9 second advantage by the end of the day over Polaris team mate Iain Hughes with Nathan Chivers Can-Am a further minute back.
“Pretty happy about that!” smiled Cody. “It’s been a big season, we were almost the underdogs but we’ve come through. We’re more than rapt!”
With Jeff David retiring his Porsche 911 from action during yesterday’s second Heat there were no Classics running today.
And so that ends season 2015 with two newly crowned Champions (Marcus Walkem and Clay Badenoch) and two returning Champions (Eli Evans and Cody Crocker). Thanks to all the drivers, co-drivers, team, events and officials a big thank you, it’s been incredible from start to finish.
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