Bruce Fullerton and Hugh Reardon-Smith were 6th in Heat 1 and 8th in Heat 2, leaving them in 5th outright for the weekend in the Alliance Airlines backed Evo 6.
“We set out to be competitive all weekend,” Bruce said, “and for most of the stages our times were inside the top 8. On Saturday we drove a strategic rally – going hard early in the day then easing off at the end, but on Sunday it was flat out all the way”.
In Heat 2 the team were in a group competing for 5th to 9th positions, and swapped times and positions all day.
“We dropped behind Justin Dowel’s Evo 9 with two stages to go,” explained Bruce, “but a 5th fastest time on the penultimate stage got us back in front.” The eventual gap between 5th and 9th in Heat 2 was just 21 seconds after 110km of competitive stages.
Bruce and Hugh were running on Pirelli tyres for the event, and being entered in the Premier League had to make do with just 12 tyres, but they came out winners of the Premier League and winners of the P5 class.
“We had some good advice about tyre choice,” said Bruce, “and it paid off for us with the tricky conditions. We are really pleased with this result.”
Sponsors for the event were Fullerton Financial Services, Prime Haulage and Alliance Airlines.
The sister car of Ryan and Rebecca Smart was entered by Fullerton Financial Services. This was the brother and sister team’s first ARC rally in a 4WD car, and their Alliance Airlines backed Evo 6 performed faultessly.
Running on Silverstone tyres, Fullerton was highly impressed by this young crew on their first Rally of Canberra.
“Ryan and Rebecca drove a strong and mature rally, and to finish 10th on both days, giving them 7th outright for the event, was tremendous – a result they should be very proud of.”
The difficult Canberra roads threw up plenty of challenges, but the only two-car privateer team at the event came up trumps with 5th and 7th outright at the finish.
The team would like to thank all their sponsors:
Fullerton Financial Services
Prime Haulage
Alliance Airlines
Silverstone Tyres
Yandina Auto Repairs
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